Love is Brutal
by xgossamerstars
Summary: What frightened them were the things that lived in their minds, Toki realized; things they still loved, despite the horror and terror that laced that love. Skwisgaar x Toki, don't like don't read.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes**: As of 1/9/2012, all chapters of this story through chapter 10 have been replaced with their rewrites. The chapters were rewritten in order to take advantage of my improved writing abilities as well as to make the entire story more cohesive. The rewritten chapters are not beta-read, and I apologize for any mistakes in spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Metalocalypse or its characters, and I make no money off these fics.

**The following warnings apply to the entire story:  
**_Language, male/male sexual content, violence, implied pedophilia and incest, implied child abuse._

**DO NOT READ THIS STORY IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN. **

* * *

"Sombahdy has t'wake Toki th'fack up," Pickles declared, exhaling smoke. It was exactly six forty-five in the morning—they had a show somewhere out of the country and the manager had made them wake up early—and he was having his breakfast cigarette.

"He is awake, dickface," growled Nathan, not even bothering to raise his forehead from where it rested against the breakfast table. "Sort of, anyway."

"He'sch fuckin' cata—caschtra—awe, fuck—" Murderface, who had been shoveling bacon and eggs into his rather large mouth, stumbled over the word, managing to spray Skwisgaar in bits of scrambled egg and spit in the process.

"Watch what's yous doingks, yous fuckingks dildos," Skwisgaar snarled, leaping to his feet and brushing himself (and his guitar) off frantically. "No ones be wantingks whats beens insides yours mout' alreadies!"

"Fuck you," Murderface answered, and wiped his mouth with the back of one pudgy hand before diving back into his breakfast headfirst.

"Catatonic, is what he meant," Nathan mumbled, groping with his right hand for his coffee cup. He found it, and raised his head just enough to take a sip before letting it drop back down. "But Pickles is right. Skwisgaar, go wake him up."

Skwisgaar, still preoccupied with ridding his jeans and guitar of half-chewed eggs and Murderface spittle, started at the sound of his name. "Eh, whats yous sayingks?" he asked.

"Go wake up Toki, douchebeag," Pickles snapped irritably. He was hungover and jittery, coming down from a tequila-and-cocaine binge that had left him with bright, bloodshot eyes and an extremely short temper. He cracked open a beer and drained half of it in one swallow. "We gahtta show t'do, he can't be call cata-whatsit or he won' be able t'play."

"Fucks you, dildoes," Skwisgaar grumbled. "I's been pukingks all de damn nights. Stupids fat whore…"

"Yeah, I wasn' really jumpin' fer joy when Seth's ugly face showed up, but they're gahn now, douchebeag." Pickles crumped the beer car in his hand a threw it over his shoulder, then began digging in his pocket for another cigarette. "Toki should fackin' snap outta it."

"Hows ams I goingks to be snappingks him outs of it?" Skwisgaar asked, sneering. "Besides, its not likes we really be needingks hims…"

"Well, we can't leave him, either," Nathan said. He lifted his head and slumped backward in his chair, rubbing his face with both hands. "He'll burn the fuckin' Haus down. He's like a fuckin' five year old."

"Well it'sch no fuckin' wonder he'sch like that," Murderface paused to chug his orange juice, then added, "Fuckin' creepy assch parentsch of hisch."

"Man, I didn't like those douchebeags," Pickles took a drag off a slightly bent Marlboro Red, then dissolved into coughing for a moment, missing the disapproving glances of his band mates. Once he recovered, he spit into the general direction of the trash can and continued, "I thought I had it bad w'my fackin' parents. Least they'd tahlk to me."

Skwisgaar—who had begun to turn a delicate shade of green ever since Murderface had said the word "parents"—suddenly scrambled out of his seat and dove for the sink. He dry heaved for a moment, then spewed forth a greasy, yellowish substance that could only be bile.

"Fucks de parents talks," he said slowly, a moment later. "I cant's be handlingks it."

"Brutal," Nathan mumbled, in response to Skwisgaar's sudden sickness. "But we've gotta leave in like an hour. Go try your fuckin' luck, Skwisgaar. If it don't work we'll get him a babysitter or somethin'."

"Ugh, fines," Skwisgaar sighed, and stomped off down the corridor that would take him to Toki's room. His stomach was still roiling, but by force of will he managed to calm it down somewhat by the time he reached Toki's door. It was decorated in a poster featuring a giant, bloody shark's mouth and a sign scrawled in Toki's distinctly childish script that read: "KEEPS OUT! THIS MEANS YOU SKWISGAAR!"

Skwisgaar tried to suppress a smirk and failed. He shook his head, and opened Toki's door without knocking. The room was pitch dark; the sheets from Toki's bed had been draped over the small windows. Skwisgaar couldn't see anything, let alone Toki, to save his life.

"Toki?" Skwisgaar ventured, a little annoyed by the darkness in the room. "Toki, we gots a shows today, yous can'ts be all cata…catsatonsnic, ors whatevers. Well, Nat'an's says you can'ts, we coulds do fines wit' outs you, you knows."

He paused for a moment, waiting to see if this little jibe was enough to bring Toki out of…whatever he was in, but he got no answer except for a very faint shuffling noise that came from his left. He felt along the wall for a light switch, but when he found it and flipped it, nothing happened.

"Toki!" Skwisgaar called, beginning to be _very _annoyed, "If I fucks up mine hands in yours rooms, I'ms goingks to kills you!" He held his precious hands out in front of him like a blind person, feeling his way toward the soft sound.

He heard it again, like someone shuffling along carpet in their sock feet…but the floor of Toki's room was black tile. At that moment, Skwisgaar smashed into a wall, stumbled backward, and fell, causing something hanging on Toki's wall to fall and shatter.

_Probably one of those creepy pictures of his parents he keeps around, _Skwisgaar thought in Swedish. He'd never yet ben able to master thinking entirely in English, and he wondered vaguely if Toki was able to. He would ask him, if the little dildo would ever snap out of…whatever he was in.

Skwisgaar began to feel his way along the wall, shattering a few more pictures along the way. His feeling hands were probably just the height of Toki's eyes; the Norwegian was shorter than him, after all.

Skwisgaar's blind-man explorations were halted when his crotch came in sudden contact with a doorknob. The force wasn't enough to put him on the ground, but it was enough to make him cup his throbbing balls in the palm of his hand and curse loudly for several seconds.

Over his own furious mumbling, he heard the shuffling noise again, and this time it was louder. Skwisgaar realized that the offending doorknob must belong to Toki's closet, and that the bizarre sound must be coming from behind the closet door. Still massaging his abused genitalia in one hand, he reached out and opened the closet door with the other.

Skwisgaar's icy blue eyes, now adjusted to the darkness of Toki's room, focused in on a peculiar sight. Toki's shadowy form was huddled at the very back of his closet, and he seemed to have buried himself in what looked like every piece of clothing he owned. Only his childish baby blues peered out from the folds of cloth hiding him.

"Toki?" Skwisgaar asked, a little incredulous. "Toki, yous little dildos, whats you doingks?"

The sound of Skwisgaar's voice made Toki cringe, and he tried to scoot backward some more. The strange shuffling noise was coming from the clothes that hid him as they shifted against the floor and one another. There was nowhere left for Toki to scoot, however, and Skwisgaar sighed as he began to feel along the wall for a light switch.

This one worked. _This is insane, _Skwisgaar thought, squinting into the sudden brightness. Toki's eyes had narrowed as well, and he was still trying to scoot backward, away from Skwisgaar.

"Toki, we's gots a concerts today, dildoes. Gets de fucks out of heres," Skwisgaar scowled as he spoke. He didn't like things that he didn't understand—granted, he didn't understand much besides guitars and groupies—and he certainly didn't understand why Toki should be hiding under his clothes at the back of his closet and refusing to speak.

Toki made no sound. The bundle of clothes began to tremble slightly.

Skwisgaar felt panic beginning to rise in his chest—what was he supposed to do with Toki now?—but he quickly channeled in into anger instead. It was easier to be angry. Tell himself that he was pissed off, not panicking, Skwisgaar snarled, "Gets de fucks out, Toki, or I'lls be makingks you get de fucks out."

This time, Skwisgaar could have sworn he heard the little bundle that was Toki begin to whimper. He paused for a moment, his feigned anger shifting more toward pity. Toki could sound so sad sometimes, so sad that Skwisgaar almost wanted—

The blond shook his head vigorously and held on to his anger, following through with his original threat. He dug one hand into the bundle of clothes that hid Toki, seized him by the hair, and pulled him up on his feet.

Toki's face contorted in pain and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as Skwisgaar jerked on his hair, but no more whimpers escaped him. He seemed incapable of sound; he stood before Skwisgaar in nothing but a pair of black boxers, shivering and silent. Once again, Skwisgaar nearly lost his grip on the familiar, comfortable anger as it gave way to concern. Toki's body, usually so hard and muscular, was beginning to resemble Skwisgaar's own: thin, emaciated, with ribs showing and collarbones protruding. Skwisgaar, who had been almost dangerously thin for years, was used to the look on himself, but on Toki…on Toki, it frightened him. It looked unhealthy, unattractive (Skwisgaar conveniently decided not to acknowledge the fact that he had used the word "attractive" in association with Toki, no matter what form of it).

Skwisgaar, hand still buried to the roots in Toki's long hair, began to count on the fingers of his free hand. He hadn't seen Toki eat since the band's families had arrived for their visit three days ago. They had _left _two days ago, and since then Skwisgaar didn't think he had actually _seen _Toki at all.

"Toki?" Skwisgaar said tentatively. He waved his free hand in front of Toki's face. "Toki? Toki, cans you evens be hearingks me? Nods if you cans."

Toki blinked, his eyes still filled to the brim with tears that didn't want to fall. He nodded once.

_Then why won't you fucking _talk to me? Skwisgaar thought, and once again he twisted all his concern and panic into fury. He pulled his fist back to punch Toki—it wouldn't be the first time, and maybe it would wake him up—but as he moved to drive his fist forward, he saw Toki's blue eyes widen, he saw the tears in them actually begin to fall, and he saw one more thing.

He saw that Toki didn't move. Toki _always _moved when a beating was imminent; ever since the early days, when they'd been so young together, Toki always moved when Skwisgaar went after him. Whether it was an all-in-fun wrestling match or a serious fight, Toki had always, _always _moved, and he had always, _always _fought back.

Then, something clicked. Something that actually managed to draw the pity from Skwisgaar, pure pity that couldn't be contorted into anger, because for a moment, Skwisgaar understood. For a moment, Skwisgaar could identify with what Toki was feeling.

He pulled back just as the blow was about to fall on Toki's jaw. Skwisgaar uncurled his fist, he let go of Toki's hair, and he placed his hands gently on Toki's wet cheeks. With something warm and sweet blooming inside his hollowed chest, Skwisgaar brushed the tears under Toki's eyes away with his thumbs, then grabbed the shorter man in his scrawny arms and hugged him as tightly as he could.

"_They can't beat you anymore, Toki_," he whispered fiercely in Swedish. "_You're safe here."_

The Norwegian stood motionless for a minute, then Skwisgaar felt strong arms tighten around his waist as Toki finally became responsive. He dug his fingers into the place just below Skwisgaar's shoulder blades, buried his face in Skwisgaar's bony shoulder, and started sobbing. Not just crying—Skwisgaar had seen Toki cry before, had even caused it and had always made fun of him mercilessly for it, but dammit, this time Toki was _sobbing, _and it hurt Skwisgaar more deeply than anything had since he was a child, because he remembered when he himself had sobbed like that…nearly every night of his childhood. It had been the only way to fall asleep before he had discovered the guitar.

Skwisgaar didn't mention a word of this—in fact, as soon as he remembered it, he shoved it instantly out of his mind, because it made him feel nauseated—but he did stand there in Toki's closet and hold him until Toki finally stopped trembling and his choking sobs eased to the occasional sniffle.

Toki shocked Skwisgaar by being the one to break the embrace. He actually put his hands against Skwisgaar's sunken chest and shoved the taller man off, turning away and wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

"You'll make funs of me now, won't yous?" he whispered, bending over to dig through the pile of clothes he had taken refuge in earlier.

_I am _not _staring at his ass. I'm watching him to make sure he's steady on his feet. He hasn't eaten in days. _Skwisgaar though absently, then realized what Toki had just said. The thing in his chest that had been so warm a few minutes ago now ran cold, so cold that it was painful. It left him feeling hollow again, hollow and sad.

"Go aheads and tells me, Skwisgaar," Toki said, pulling on his dark brown pants and grabbing a random blue t-shirt from the floor. "Go aheads and makes fun of me now, or does you wants to do it in front of everyone else?" Toki snatched the shirt over his head—it was loose now, billowing around him like a sack—and began to crawl on the floor to find a pair of boots.

Skwisgaar dropped to his knees to help, still choosing not to answer Toki's question, still wondering why he was suddenly so sad.

"Damns it, Skwisgaar!" Toki cried, and the subject of this curse tossed his blond hair out of his face and cocked his head. They stared at each other, both of them on all fours like dogs. Toki's eyes were still red and leaking, his nose still sniffling, and Skwisgaar suddenly wished he had a Kleenex to give him. As it was, he settled for reaching out a flicking a stray tear off the end of Toki's nose.

Toki closed his eyes. "Stops pretending likes you care, Skwisgaar," he whispered, bowing his head. "Is not helpings."

_Pretending? _Skwisgaar thought, _I'm not pretending, how do I…_

The idea, bizarre and sudden though it was, came to him one instant and was acted upon the next. Maybe it would show Toki how much he cared, how much he fucking _understood—_

"Why is you looking ats me like that?" Toki had opened his eyes, and was looking askance at Skwisgaar. "Yous scaring me."

"Shuts up, Toki," Skwisgaar said softly, and leaned forward to press his lips against Toki's.

One second…five…eight…ten whole seconds their lips remained together, before Toki jerked backward, banging his back into the wall and covering his mouth as if Skwisgaar's lips had been on fire. Skwisgaar couldn't read Toki's expression to save his life.

Toki scrambled to his feet, staring down at the Swede, who had sat back on his haunches when Toki had jumped backward. Skwisgaar honestly had no idea what he was thinking, what he was feeling…except that the warm bloom inside his chest was back, and it had him smiling and forgetting just exactly how NOT metal it was to kiss another man.

"G-gets out, Skwisgaar. N-now. I…I don't…I don'ts wants you to do this to me." Toki tripped over his boot, one of the pair he had been looking for, and sat down hard on his ass, teeth clicking together loudly.

The sharp snap of Toki's teeth brought Skwisgaar out of his reverie, made him realize what Toki had just said. He felt the hollow darkness creeping back into his chest, felt the smile melting off his face, and he remembered what that feeling was at last.

It was hurt. Toki had hurt him. Not physically—that Skwisgaar would have understood right away—but Toki had hurt him emotionally. He found he didn't want to beat the shit out of the little dildo for it, either.

He wanted to hold him again.

Skwisgaar sat there for a moment or two longer, then rose to his full height, towering over Toki, who was still sitting down. He saw the toe of the other boot peeking out from a pair of jeans and bent down to retrieve it. Toki started to scurry away, but when Skwisgaar held out the boot, he took it wordlessly.

The Swede left the closet and walked to the door, his shadow stretched out before him in the light from the closet. He looked back at Toki, who was still sitting amongst his clothes and boots, looking so utterly confused that Skwisgaar had to smile.

"I's not pretendingks, Toki," he said quietly, "Buts you had better be hurryingks. We's gots to be leavingks soon."

With that, he slipped out of the closet, leaving Toki feeling better and worse than he had before.


	2. Chapter 2

_Yeah, right. _Toki thought, the words coming to his mind in Norwegian. _You definitely weren't pretending at all, Skwisgaar._

Toki pulled his dark hair out of his face and leaned in toward the mirror, poking the tender and discolored skin beneath his right eye. It wasn't the first black eye Skwisgaar had ever given him, and it likely wouldn't be the last, but this one…this one had hurt more than the others, somehow.

_He must have been high this morning, _Toki thought, running water in the sink and splashing it gently on his bruised face. _Why else would he…would he have…_

Even in his own thoughts, Toki couldn't quite admit what had happened that morning in his closet. He couldn't think about it, couldn't dwell on it, because it made him feel things that he did not want to feel…things he was ashamed to feel. He refused to think about it at all, fearing that if he lingered on the thought long enough, he'd realize that instead of immediately pulling away (like Pickles would have done), punching the living shit out of him (like Nathan would have done), and killing him (like Murderface would have done), Toki himself had…sat there. He had sat there on all fours in his closet with his lips pressed against Skwisgaar's for ten interminable seconds before he had realized just what it was he had been doing. Toki also feared that if he let himself think about it too much, he would also begin to think about how he had…not minded.

Strangely enough, however, it wasn't that particular event that made his damn black eye hurt so much worse than any other black eye he had ever gotten from the fucking Swede.

No, what made _this _black eye hurt so much more was Skwisgaar's stupid, velvet voice whispering softly, "_They can't beat you anymore, Toki."_

"_If _they_ can't beat me," _Toki muttered in Norwegian, drying his face and twisting the excess water out of his mustache, _"What the fuck gives _him _the right to?"_

Toki replayed the scene in his mind as he stripped to his boxers, preparing for bed. That morning, after he had recovered enough to leave his bedroom, Toki had managed to make it to the Hatredcopter just in time. His lateness earned him a half-hearted tongue lashing from the manager, but no one asked him what was wrong (not that he had expected them to) and he was grateful. To begin with, he had also been grateful that Skwisgaar was keeping his distance. The Swede had positioned himself as far away from Toki as possible for the entire flight, unusually silent. He didn't even _look _at Toki, let alone insult him, the whole way there.

Once they landed, however, Skwisgaar changed. Backstage, right before they were set to go on, the blond started in with a vengeance, as if trying to make up for lost time; he ragged on Toki's guitar skills, called him a fucking dildo who couldn't play to save his miserable life, and informed him that he might as well not have showed up today for all the difference it would have made in the show.

Toki had tried to ignore it, but he couldn't ignore the way Skwisgaar's words seemed more cruel than usual, seemed to cut a little deeper than they ever had before that morning. It was a matter of minutes before he whirled on Skwisgaar, rage flaring through his veins, and snarled at him in Norwegian, _ "Go fuck your mother, asshole."_

A split second later Toki had found himself on the ground, head pounding like the notes from Murderface's bass guitar. The pale hand Pickles was holding out him doubled, then trebled, before his vision cleared and Toki was able to grab it. Nathan had Skwisgaar's thin arms in a deathgrip, and had braced him against his broad chest and lifted him off his feet; it seemed to be the only way to keep Skwisgaar from escaping. Pickles was pushing Toki toward the manager; after the incident when someone had decided to fuck with Charles's 'bread and butter' Toki knew Skwisgaar wouldn't be very keen on crossing the manager. Pickles offered him a joint for his pounding head at the same time Charles offered him aspirin. Toki took both, but missed the fleeting look of anger that crossed Charles' face when Pickles handed him the weed. The pain soon ebbed away, and for the entire length of the show, Toki felt fine. Skwisgaar was the furthest thing from his mind.

When he boarded the 'Copter behind the rest of the band, however, it was an entirely different story. Skwisgaar removed himself from the others almost immediately, taking a chair and dragging it into a corner. He sprawled himself in it, his long legs draped over one arm, and plucked absently at his guitar while staring out one of the many windows. Toki tried to ignore him and party with the rest of the guys, but his face was beginning to throb again, and the beer didn't sit well on top of the weed. He, too, found himself sprawled in a chair on the opposite side of the room from Skwisgaar, devouring whatever he pulled out of his candy bowl and shooting dark looks at the man who was responsible for the dull ache in both his head and his heart.

And now here he was, snuggled in his small bed with Deddybear in the crook of his arm, thinking about exactly what he had promised himself he wouldn't think about: that stupid fucking guitar player who had suddenly fucked up his relatively cheerful existence.

Gradually, his angry thoughts began to slow, ebbing further into the area of dreams than actual consciousness. He was so nearly asleep that at first, he thought that what he was hearing _was _part of his dreams…thought that it was actually _himself _who was screaming. It was such a despairing sound, so full of fear and pain that Toki, half asleep, shot straight up in bed with his arms over his face, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for the form of his father.

When he finally realized that his father was thousands of miles away, growing old and sick in Norway, the sound came again and he began to shiver. It was not something Toki was used to hearing in Mordhaus late at night; it was not Nathan raising hell, not Murderface insisting that he could sing, it was not even a smashed and strung out Pickles. It didn't even sound like any of Skwisgaar's groupies, either, although Toki couldn't recall hearing them in awhile and doubted that anyone in the throes of an orgasm would make such a fearsome noise.

He crawled out of bed, tugging his boxers out of his balls and twisting the waistband of his pajama pants until it faced forward again. He was trying to discern the direction from which the horrific scream had come…he _thought _that it had come from down the hall, echoing off the corridor walls and finally reaching him from…where?

_The only room down that corridor is Skwisgaar's, _Toki thought irritably. _And if something is wrong with him he can go fuck himself._

He was just about to slip back into bed when something occurred to him: What if Skwisgaar really _was _hurt? What if something truly horrible had happened, and Toki was the only one to hear him screaming?

Toki—perhaps a better person than any in Dethklok—put his anger and hurt aside for a moment, and asked himself how he would feel if something awful was happening to Skwisgaar and he didn't go to help. He entertained a momentary fantasy of saving Skwisgaar from something hideous and terrifying, after which Skwisgaar fell on his knees in front of Toki and apologized for being such an asshole.

_Yeah, right, _Toki thought, _That'll be the day. _He stood still for a moment, Deddy tucked under one arm, alert for any more sounds from down the corridor. All was quiet now…he could probably just go back to bed, Skwisgaar must be all right now…

The instant Toki made up his mind to go back to bed, the scream came again, scaring him half to death. He clutched Deddy to his chest and froze for a moment, shaking, before getting hold of himself and turning toward his bedroom door. He opened it, still holding Deddybear tightly to him, and peeked down the corridor like a small child awake past his bedtime.

Something about Mordhaus at night had always made Toki nervous; he tried not to walk around alone after everyone had fallen asleep. There were too many shadows for his overactive imagination to deal with, but he was willing to brave whatever might be hiding in those shadows—and in his mind—to make sure that Skwisgaar was all right.

_The band needs him, that's all, _Toki told himself, knowing it was just an excuse and telling it to himself anyway. He wound Deddy's devil tail around his wrist nervously and began his trek down the hall. _If something really bad happened to him, the sooner he gets help, the better. For the band._

The trick worked for a little while, until Toki was about halfway to Skwisgaar's bedroom door. At that point, he began to wonder if what he had heard actually _had _been one of Skwisgaar's groupies. He had never heard that precise kind of scream from a groupie before, true, but…if he went into Skwisgaar's room and saw him with a groupie—or worse, a crowd of groupies—after what had happened that morning, Toki thought he might snap. It was enough to make him turn around and creep a few steps back toward his own bedroom when Skwisgaar screamed again, and this time the sound was in close proximity.

"_That's not some girl," _Toki muttered to himself, _ "That's definitely the fucking Swede."_

He raced the few yards toward Skwisgaar's door and stretched out his hand for the knob, then paused abruptly. Finally having reached his destination, he was now too nervous to go inside. If he knocked, Skwisgaar was liable to tell him to fuck off, no matter _what _was wrong with him…it was just the way Skwisgaar was. If he _didn't _knock, and walked in on Skwisgaar in the middle of something relatively harmless that just so happened to make him scream bloody murder, Toki was liable to have another black eye.

He remembered something Nathan had said once, something about choosing between the lesser of two evils. Toki hadn't really understood what that meant until now, as he pulled open Skwisgaar's door without knocking.

It could easily have been the last thing that he ever did. Skwisgaar's thin arm shot out of the darkness, the long fingers clenching around Toki's throat in a grip he never would have thought possible, as thin as Skwisgaar had always been. His air was choked off mid-breath, and he heard Skwisgaar's voice, somehow crueler and colder when speaking his native tongue, snarl from the shadows, _ "What the fuck do you think you're doing in here?"_

Toki, unable to answer, brought his hands to his throat and clawed at Skwisgaar's hand; he managed to get one of his own hands around Skwisgaar's tiny wrist, but his lungs were already burning, his mind already refusing to function properly thanks to lack of oxygen, and the fact that he was much stronger than Skwisgaar was quickly beginning to mean nothing. He felt his feet leaving the ground and had a moment to marvel that Skwisgaar could manage such a thing before he began to kick and squirm in earnest, all thought except that of oxygen gone from his mind.

Then, just as suddenly as he had been seized, Toki was dropped. He landed in a heap, Deddybear trapped under his legs, swallowing great gulps of air like Pickles swallowed liquor. He had almost forgotten Skwisgaar entirely in his ecstasy at being allowed to breathe again.

"_Toki?"_

The voice was more accented than it would have been had Skwisgaar been saying 'Toki' in English, and Toki felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. Skwisgaar only fell completely into Swedish when something was very wrong.

"_Ja,"_ Toki mumbled, getting to his feet and massaging his bruised throat. _ "What's wrong?"_ There was no point in speaking English to Skwisgaar if he wasn't going to speak it, too, and besides, their first languages were so closely related that they might as well have been speaking the same one.

There was silence for a moment, then a small _click _as Skwisgaar turned on a bedside lamp. He was shirtless, his sunken chest and protruding ribs slicked with sweat. His yellow hair was lank and lifeless, and the bags under his eyes seemed even more pronounced than usual. _Yes,_ Toki thought, _Something is wrong, very wrong, but what?_

Skwisgaar seemed to realize that Toki was taking in his disheveled appearance. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to another, then bent over to pick up Deddybear. He held the bear for a moment, staring at it as if it were a particularly interesting brand of guitar, before handing it silently back to Toki and shuffling back to his bed.

Toki simply sat Deddybear on Skwisgaar's dresser and followed him. The blond was sitting on the edge of his bed, his face in his hands. Toki sat down beside him and repeated, _ "What's wrong?"_

Skwisgaar looked up, and the expression on his face was one Toki couldn't recall seeing recently. He looked…younger, somehow. Almost frightened. _"How?" _he asked. _ "I mean…what makes you think there's something wrong?"_

It was so absurd, so ridiculous of him to say something like that, that Toki nearly started laughing. He settled for a rueful smirk instead. Rubbing his bruised eye, he said, _ "Well, you were definitely all right before the concert, that's for sure, but right as I was about to fall asleep I heard you screaming, and when someone screams like that it generally means that they're not all right."_

Skwisgaar—who had forgotten how sardonic Toki could be when speaking Norwegian—stared at him in blatant wonder. _ "You…" _he began, _ "You came all the way down here in the dark? After I hit you like that? Just because I was screaming in my sleep?"_

"_Yeah, well," _Toki shot him an angry look, but it only lasted for a moment. _"I was thinking that you might be hurt or something."_

Skwisgaar grunted. It was a bitter, angry sound, but Toki sensed that it was not directed at him.

"Are _you hurt, then?" _he asked.

"_Pfft. Only where you can't see it." _Skwisgaar sighed, burying his face in his big hands once more. _ "I'm…I'm sorry I hit you, Toki."_

Toki nearly choked on his own breath. He couldn't believe his ears.

"_You…? Wait. Wait, no, you must have a fever or something," _he said, and even reached over to place a hand on Skwisgaar's forehead. _ "I'll call the doctor, you just wait here."_

He had only just gotten to his feet when he felt Skwisgaar's hand close around his wrist; the Swede was laughing softly.

"_No, Toki, no, I don't have a fever."_

Toki—his heart still beating ninety to nothing from the first apology he had ever gotten out of Skwisgaar in all his fourteen years of knowing him—narrowed his eyes as snatched his hand away. _ "Then you must not be serious. You must just be fucking around like you were this morn—" _

Horrified with himself, Toki stopped speaking. Skwisgaar looked as if he had been slapped.

"_I…deserve that," _Skwisgaar said, running his fingers through his messy hair. _ "But…I'm not fucking with you, Toki. I wasn't then and I'm not now. I swear it."_

Toki's heart skipped a beat in his chest, but he could feel the blood beating beneath his bruised skin and shook his head. Tears were burning in his eyes and he hated himself for them because he was sick of crying in front of Skwisgaar, but he was suddenly so furious, so angry, that he couldn't help but let them fall.

"_If you weren't fucking around then why the hell did you haul off and punch me in the face, you asshole? If they can't beat me anymore, if I'm so fucking safe with you, then what the fuck gives you the right to hit me? Huh?"_ he thundered. _ "Why the fuck should I believe a word you're saying right now, Skwisgaar? Give me one good reason why I should believe you!"_

The silence this tirade left in its wake was deafening. The whiteness of Skwisgaar's room had blurred into one great pale fuzz as Toki tried to see through his tears, so he closed his eyes for a moment to blink them away. When he opened them again, Skwisgaar was on his knees on the floor; he was clutching his hair as if he wanted to snatch it from his skull.

"_I'm such a fucking idiot," _he muttered fiercely; his teeth were clenched together so tightly that the words came out as a hiss, and Toki took a step back, unnerved.

"_Such a fucking idiot," _he repeated, and when he pulled his hands away from his head his long fingers were covered in loose strands of his hair. He looked up at Toki, who nearly fell to his own knees; there were tears in the corners of Skwisgaar's icy eyes, trembling as if they wanted desperately to fall, but Skwisgaar dashed them away before they could.

"_I'm sorry, Toki," _he said, and again the words made Toki's heartbeat speed up. Skwisgaar raised himself back onto the bed like a man twice his age, holding his head in one hand. _ "Will you let me explain? Please?"_

Toki, still stunned by the sight of tears in those cold eyes, only nodded. He sank to the floor Indian style, like a small boy waiting for story time.

Skwisgaar sighed once more, cursed violently, then launched into his tale.

"_This morning…I wasn't pretending, Toki. I swear that to you, even though I guess I know you don't feel the same way. When you came into my room just now, I thought you were someone else, someone I didn't want to see. But on the 'Copter you were so quiet, and you seemed so sad. I was afraid you were going to become catatonic again before we even landed, so when we got there, I did the only thing I knew to do to keep that from happening: I started picking on you. It worked, sort of, I guess. I hated seeing you hurt like that, Toki, but I knew it would piss you off, too, and you play so much better when you're pissed off, for whatever reason." _

He paused. Toki could see him trembling, could see his throat working as if he were trying to swallow something large and disgusting.

"_I just…"_ the words were choked, broken, but Skwisgaar pushed onward. _ "I just…never…expected you to…say that. About her. And…me. She…she fucked so many fucking people and I…she…there were times that we…f-fuck—"_

Toki had been waiting for it, because it always happened whenever someone brought up Serveta. Maybe not right away, but eventually, and as Skwisgaar leaped to his feet and scrambled for the bathroom with his hand plastered over his mouth, Toki followed him quietly.

The Swede was sprawled on the white tile in front of his toilet, dry-heaving and spitting and holding his forehead. He looked tragically like post-party Pickles.

"_Sorry," _he mumbled weakly, and spit into the bowl once more. _ "I can't…ugh, gods—!" _He heaved again, this time bringing up a wash of yellow bile tinged with blood. It filled the bathroom with a sick, acrid smell.

When Skwisgaar wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, he turned to see Toki holding his long hair out of the way. He managed a weak smile before the nausea overwhelmed him again; this time the blood was more prominent.

"_Have you been puking like this since they came to visit?" _Toki asked, taking advantage of the pause in Skwisgaar' sickness to gather his hair more fully at the base of his neck.

Skwisgaar could only nod; he was retching again, but nothing was coming up. All he could do was spit a few more times, and even his saliva was pinkish-tinged.

Toki helped him stand; he had to pour the mouthwash into the little plastic cup for him, because Skwisgaar's hands were shaking too badly.

A moment later they were back to Skwisgaar's bed, with the Swede propped weakly amongst his fluffy pillows and Toki sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. The silence between them was so awkward that it actually seemed to have weight, and Toki's mind was reeling, trying to process what Skwisgaar had told him.

'_I guess I know you don't feel the same way.'_ The words echoed around in Toki's mind. He wouldn't—couldn't—allow himself to hope that meant what he thought it meant.

"_Skwisgaar," _he began slowly, _ "Are you, um…" _He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck; he could feel his face flushing and knew his cheeks must be brightest pink. _ "Are you…gay?" _

He wanted to crawl under a rock and hide as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but Skwisgaar's lips twitched in the ghost of a smirk.

"_Maybe," _he replied. _ "Are you?"_

It was amazing how many things could fill his brain in the space of a few moments, Toki thought, as he flashed back to that morning, to those ten full seconds that Skwisgaar's lips had rested gently against his own. He let himself feel something about it for the first time since it had actually happened; he had been so busy fighting off the feelings that he hadn't actually let them come, hadn't actually let himself examine them.

He had been startled at first, he remembered; he hadn't known what Skwisgaar was going to do to him until he felt the Swede's mouth against his. Once he had gotten past being startled, he became frightened, frightened that this was some game, that Skwisgaar would suddenly pull back and laugh, that Nathan and Murderface and Pickles would suddenly appear from behind his closet door and tease him for being a little fag, but nothing of the sort had happened. His fright had given way to a sense of comfort then, much like he had felt while crying into Skwisgaar's chest. After that there came…happiness. Simple, fleeting happiness, and the knowledge that this was what he had always wanted. A split second after _that _thought had crossed his mind, he panicked, jumping backward and ordering Skwisgaar out of his room.

"_I think only for you,"_ Toki replied, and for some reason he couldn't fathom, he dissolved into tears.

Skwisgaar, apparently, was full of surprises tonight; as soon as Toki had buried his face in his hands, he felt the taller man's thin arms around him, pulling him gently into his lap. He could feel Skwisgaar's long fingers stroking through his hair, heard him mumbling comfort in a mix of English and Swedish, and even as he cried Toki's heart soared.

When he pulled away this time, he did so gently, wanting Skwisgaar to know that he appreciated his kindness; he left one of his hands twined with Skwisgaar's on top of the furry coverlet.

"_Are you all right, Toki?" _Skwisgaar asked, and Toki smiled slightly; the blond's high cheekbones were coloring.

"_I'm…all right, I think," _Toki said, _ "Just…confused. You, though…you were the one screaming in your sleep, Skwisgaar. Why? Are you all right?"_

Toki saw what he expected to see; Skwisgaar's face changing in the blink of an eye. The new openness, the new honesty that he had seen from Skwisgaar tonight faded quickly back into the cold, brooding model that he was most familiar with as the Swede replied, _ "I was dreaming. It's nothing. I'm fine."_

Toki nodded. _ "You're lying," _he said, _ "But it's okay. What were you going to say before you started throwing up?"_

Skwisgaar's jaw clenched down so tightly that Toki could hear the sharp _click _of his back teeth as they snapped together. He could feel Skwisgaar's body change as all his muscles seized up, could see his throat working in that same way, like he was trying to swallow something he couldn't quite get down.

"_Nothing." _Skwisgaar said, and Toki knew he was fighting not to start dry-heaving again. It was exactly what Toki had expected him to say.

"_You're lying,"_ he repeated, but his voice was quiet, gentle. He stood up, letting Skwisgaar's hand go free slowly, giving it a last squeeze before he finally let it drop. For a moment, the Swede opened his mouth, looking as if he were on the verge of explaining…but he closed it almost instantly.

Toki started to walk away, toward the door. He could feel Skwisgaar staring after him.

"_Toki? Where are you going?" _

Toki turned around, one hand on the doorknob. With the other, he picked up Deddybear and hugged it to his chest.

"_You and me…we're the only ones who know what it's like, Skwisgaar," _he mumbled. _ "We're the ones that got beat up the worst, fucked up the worst…I could help you, but if you don't trust me, then how the hell is this going to work?"_

He stood for a moment, silent, then tossed Deddybear across the room to Skwisgaar and left. The Swede sat alone, hugging the bear, feeling empty and hopeful all at once.


	3. Chapter 3

Mealtimes at Mordhaus were strange affairs.

Breakfast usually ended in bloodshed, thanks to Pickles' constant hangovers and the fact that Nathan and Murderface both tended to be more than a little temperamental in the mornings. Lunch was always rushed; it was right before band practice, which meant that while Skwisgaar was teasing Toki about his guitar skills, Nathan would be attempting to sing his scales (something that never failed to amuse the rest of the band, considering that Nathan didn't exactly "sing" anyway) and Murderface would be asking loudly if his bass lines would be mixed out this time. Pickles, of course, was usually taking a pre-practice drink, accompanied in some instances by a pre-practice snort.

Supper was the only quiet meal served at Mordhaus. By then, Pickles was relatively sober again, and concentrating on regaining his buzz. Murderface would, of course, be stuffing his face with all the manners of a starved Rottweiler, but it did prevent him from speaking much. Nathan inevitably had his nose stuck in a book, while Toki would be eating as quickly as possible in order to get to his dessert. Skwisgaar would push his food around on his plate for awhile, then get up and leave early, guitar in hand. He never ate much, if at all, but lately, he had been skipping supper entirely. The first person to notice (besides Toki, who wouldn't have mentioned it anyway) was Pickles.

"Hey…" he said one night a few days after the incident in Toki's closet. "Hey…where's Blondie?"

Nathan looked up from his book—he was currently muddling his way through _A Tale of Two Cities—_and pushed his glasses to the top of his head. He glanced around the table, dark eyebrows furrowing together. Murderface paused with a forkful of mashed potatoes an inch from his mouth and did the same. Toki, however, sat quietly, mixing his peas into his potatoes and poking at his steak.

"Was he here last night?" asked Nathan, placing one thick finger between the pages of the book to keep his place.

"Don't think scho," Murderface answered, and shoveled the potatoes into his mouth. He swallowed hard and added, "I don't think I've scheen him at schupper in…in.."

"Days," Pickles finished. He knitted his pierced brows together and hiccupped.

"Guessch he finally deschided to schtop comin' to schupper," Murderface said, spilling bits of half-chewed peas down his front as he spoke. "Never ate much anywaysch, ya know?"

"He always ate somethin', though, di'n't he?" Pickles said. He downed the last of his wine—his fourth glass, his band mates were all still on their first—and snapped his fingers . A Gear materialized from the shadows, holding a bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey and a liter of Coke. Pickles took the whiskey and waved the Gear away.

"Think he's sick?" he asked, attacking the wax seal with his teeth.

"Maybe," Nathan opened his book again and pushed his glasses back down his nose. "Hope it's nothin' serious."

"If he'sch not eatin' it'sch gotta be scheriousch," Murderface insisted. He was chewing a large hunk of raw steak as he spoke. "He'sch probably got canscher or schomethin'."

Toki's eyes widened a fraction of an inch, but he simply continued to cut his peas in half.

"No way, chief," Pickles answered, after he had spit the bits of wax off to the side and shoving his pocketknife deep into the bottle's cork. "He'd be like…pale an' shit. Bald. Really tired all th' time."

"He is pretty pale," Nathan mumbled. He turned a page.

"He'sch been fuckin' up hisch scholosch at practisch," Murderface reminded them. "And he keeps sayin' it'sch 'causche he'sch tired."

"Yeah but he ain't bald yet," Pickles said comfortably. He snatched the pocketknife back; the cork sprang free with a loud _pop! _"That means it ain't like, fatal yet. Or some shit."

"Maybe we should send someone to check on him," Nathan mused. "Ask him if he's got cancer."

"Good idea," Pickles said, gesturing in Nathan's direction with the whiskey bottle. He grinned slightly, took a deep breath, and bellowed, "OI! CHARLES! GET YER ASS IN HERE!"

Nathan and Murderface exchanged and strange look; none of them ever called their manager by his first name. In fact, they usually tended to forget that he _had _a first name. Pickles didn't seem to notice their expressions, however, and after a few moments, Charles Ofdensen came into the dining room, a bewildered expression on his face.

"What do you boys, ah, need?" he asked, "Really, you can order more food yourselves…" His hair was slightly messy, his tie was loose, and his surprised gaze rested on Pickles.

"So you _can _relax, eh, Robot?" Pickles grinned again. "We think the Swede's got cancer. Go ask him, wouldja?"

Charles stood at the head of the table, staring at his band in disbelief.

"May I ask _why _you think Skwisgaar has, ah…cancer?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose with his left hand.

"He'sch been fuckin' up at practisch causche he'sch tired," Murderface supplied.

"He's really pale," Nathan said. He wasn't looking at Charles; he turned another page.

"And he ain't bald yet, but that means we caught it early, right?" Pickles took a sip from the bottle and grinned again; he was well on his way to becoming sloshed.

"Skwisgaar is pale because he is blond," Charles said; he didn't even bother to comment on Pickles' remark. "It does worry me that he's been messing up during practice. Does anyone know what's wrong with him?"

Pickles just shrugged and held the bottle out toward Charles with a smirk. The manager rolled his eyes and looked at Nathan.

"Don't ask me, I'm reading," Nathan said. Charles didn't even bother to look at Murderface; he directed his gaze at Toki.

"I's…" Toki looked down at his plate. He found one of the peas he'd cut in half, and cut one of the halves in half. "I don'ts be knowings either."

"Right then. I suppose I'll go see about him." Charles started toward the door that led into the hallway, and Toki suddenly remembered what had happened to him when he walked into Skwisgaar's bedroom uninvited, suddenly remembered the hand wrapping tightly around his throat and cutting off his air.

"No!" he said quickly. Charles turned toward him, eyebrow cocked.

"I mean…no, he's sleepins right nows," Toki lied. "He…he tolds me he was going to takes a nap, 'cause he didn't feel so hots."

In truth, Toki had not spoken more than four words to Skwisgaar in the past four days, and his band mates knew it. He was only praying that none of them had been paying attention to anything he just said. In the case of Nathan and Murderface, it worked; Nathan was like a teenage girl reading _Twilight _when he had a book with him, and Murderface just didn't care. It was only Pickles who caught Toki's eye, head tilted ever so slightly to one side; he said nothing.

"Well, never mind, then," Charles said, looking a bit relieved. "But when he wakes up, I want him sent to my office. I need to make sure he's, ah…in good shape."

"Ten-four, boss man," Pickles snapped off a sloppy salute with his whiskey hand, splashing himself and the floor around him with a liberal amount of liquor. Charles sidestepped the splash deftly, but the look he shot Pickles before leaving the dining room was dark and disapproving.

There was a loud belch from the other end of the table; Murderface wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and scooted his chair backward, the legs making a cringe-worthy _skkkreeeeeet! _sound against the floor.

"Well, I'm schtuffed," he announced. "Goodnight, folksch." He left the dining room.

Nathan, without a word to either Pickles or Toki, followed suit a moment later. He walked with his book held up in front of his eyes.

"Looks like it's just me an' you, kid," Pickles said cheerfully. He took another swig from the bottle. "I still got summa that Aquavit you gave me for m' birthday, if y'want some."

Toki placed half a pea delicately in his mouth, swallowed, and sighed. "I's not thirsty, Pickle. I's not even hungry."

Pickles tilted his chair back on two legs, burped quietly, and shrugged. "What's up with you Scandinavians and yer eatin' disorders, eh? Damn."

Toki only shrugged. He was mashing his peas with the tines of his fork.

"Didn't yer mother ever tell ya not t'play with yer food, kid?" Pickles took another sip and wiped his mouth on his fuzzy blue wristband.

"Mother didn't talks," Toki replied quietly. He picked up his knife and began cutting his steak into tiny slivers.

Pickles winced, knowing that he had spoken badly. "Yeah…forgot about that, kid, sahry. She was a bitch, wasn't she? Yer mom?"

"You coulds say that," Toki muttered. He tried to mash the bits of steak like he had the peas, to no avail.

"Sorry, kid," Pickles said again. "Er…ya sure you don't want a drink?"

Toki smiled weakly at him, recognizing that Pickles' offers of booze were only his way of trying to help.

"No," he shook his head. _"Takk _anyways."

"_Takk," _Pickles repeated, smiling a little. "Thanks, right?"

Toki smiled back at him, a little more broadly this time. In the old days, before he had spoken English at all, Pickles had been the only one who had tried to learn any Norwegian. He had been awful at it, his accent destroyed even his best attempts, but Toki had appreciated the gesture then, and still appreciated it now.

"_Ja,"_ he replied, shaking himself out of his memories. "Goodnight, Pickle."

"Night, kid," Pickles called after him, as Toki's back disappeared around the corner.

_Something's wrong with him, _he thought a moment later. _Something is _really _wrong. He didn't even eat dessert._

Pickles sat alone in the dining room for awhile, sipping on his whiskey and thinking. He usually moved into his bedroom to drink once everyone else left the table (unless Charles called him into his office to discuss his 'alcohol problem') but tonight, he just couldn't be fucked to move. His chair was comfortable, the Gears would bring him anything he wanted from the liquor cabinet in about two seconds, and to be perfectly honest he wasn't sure he could navigate the staircase anyway.

It wasn't long before the whiskey was history. A few hoods appeared out of the darkness, each carrying a different glass bottle; Pickles didn't bother to check what they were. He simply waved his hand, and the servants left all five bottles on the table for him.

He picked one without really looking at it, bringing out his pocketknife again to take care of the cork. When he pulled it off the blade he tossed it behind him somewhere and started in on his second bottle of the night. It turned out to be pineapple rum.

A moment or two later, Pickles froze with the bottle halfway to his lips. There were footsteps coming down the hallway; if it was Charles, he was in a world of shit. The manager was under the impression that he had cut it down to one bottle a night (on top of whatever wine went with dinner, of course); if the Robot caught him with an empty, and open, and _four_ in reserve, he was fucked. Royally.

He was in the process of trying to hide the open bottle under the table when Skwisgaar walked past the archway of the dining room, apparently off to the kitchens; his sigh of relief was so big that the Swede actually jumped.

"Pickle!" Skwisgaar said, stepping into the dining room. "Why is yous…I was thinkingks…yous not supposed to beingks here!"

It took Pickles a moment to answer, because he was a little shocked at how thin Skwisgaar was; the Swede wasn't wearing much besides his jeans, and those were hanging so low that his skeletal hipbones jutted out over the waistband.

"Well thanks, Blondie," he said, tearing his eyes away from Skwisgaar's sunken stomach, "It's kind of ya t'tell me I'm s'posed t' be in m' own house. Ya own a fifth of it, but still."

"I's not meaningks it likes dat," Skwisgaar mumbled. "Sorries. Yous just hasn'ts been beingks here de past couples nights, dats alls."

Pickles took a swallow of rum, giving Skwisgaar a suspicious look as he did so. "Past few nights, eh? So have ya made it a habit t'come down here after everybody's already left?"

"Wells…_ja, _latelies I's been doingks dat," the blond admitted. He sat down in a chair beside Pickles and sighed. "Sorries. I's just been feelingks…fucks, whats you calls it whens you don'ts be wantingks to be beingks arounds peoples?"

"Anti-social?" Pickles supplied, and Skwisgaar nodded vigorously.

"_Ja, _dats," he said. "I's just been feelingks antisociables latelies."

"Skwisgaar," Pickles said, looking into the Swede's cold blue eyes, "Ya realize supper's the least 'sociables' of all th' meals, right? I mean if ya show up fer breakfast an' lunch, supper should be a fackin' breeze, no one fackin' talks."

"_Ja, _wells," Skwisgaar looked away; his fingers began twitching for a guitar that wasn't there. "I's nevers eats much at suppers anyways."

"Ya look like ya ain't been eatin' much, period," Pickles said, and snapped his fingers. A Gear appeared and bowed.

"My Lords?" he asked.

"Bring Blondie a sammich, PB&J's fine," Pickles said, and before Skwisgaar could protest, the hood disappeared.

"Y' wouldn't be sneakin' down t'the kitchen if y'weren't hungry, dumbass," Pickles said, tilting his chair legs back and rocking a few times. "I reckon y'can eat a PB&J in fronta me, it won't kill ya, ya ate enough of 'em when ya first got in with the rest of us."

It was true; Skwisgaar had practically lived off peanut butter and jelly when he first joined up with Nathan, Pickles, and Murderface. Granted, it had only been because he was the only one who detested Ramen Noodles no matter what flavor they came in, but he had enjoyed the sandwiches as much as he could enjoy any food.

Another Gear—this one female, her ponytail was visible behind her hood—appeared, bowed, and put a small plate and a wine glass in front of Skwisgaar. On it sat a perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cut in half diagonally, with the crusts neatly and precisely sliced away. The wine glass was filled with milk. The servant disappeared just as quickly as she had appeared, and Skwisgaar gave Pickles a dark look.

"Quit yer bitchin' and eat, Blondie," Pickles said. He drank a little more of the pineapple rum, then glanced over at the other four bottles; one was another pineapple rum, two were a coconut rum of the same brand, and one was silver tequila. The labels were in some other language so he didn't even bother trying to read them.

"Eat up and I'll give ya dessert," he added, nodding at the bottles, and dissolved into drunken giggles.

Skwisgaar hated—_hated—_eating in front of other people. He knew he had to eat if he wanted to get through the day without fainting (he had learned that at a rather young age), but he usually made do with picking at his meals. Lately, however, his hatred of eating in front of others had been compounded with the fact that he had to see Toki sitting across from him at every meal...and Toki's last words were still haunting him. It was enough to make him lose what little appetite he ever had. With breakfast set right before those interminable, tedious meetings that Charles insisted they attend and lunch set immediately before band practice, he couldn't escape either of those meals, but he could—and did—escape dinner.

He sat there, staring at the unassuming little sandwich, and wondered just what the fuck was wrong with him, exactly.

"Y'know, pretty sure it's not poisoned or nothin'," Pickles said, snapping Skwisgaar out of his thoughts. The drummer had killed off a good quarter of the rum now, and suddenly, Skwisgaar wanted desperately to be drunk.

"If I's eats dis t'ing," he said, picking up one of the little triangles in both hands, "Yous gives me da coconuts, _ja?"_

Pickles grinned at him. "Ya eat th' whole thing an' I'll give ya th' coconut rum _and _th' tequila."

"We cans be splittingks de tequila," Skwisgaar said. He looked down at the half of PB&J he held, took a deep breath, and bit into it.

As he chewed—the salty/sweet taste of the sandwich was twisted into something stale and sour thanks to his audience—Pickles said, "I dunno what it is with you Scandinavians, y' don't eat enough t'keep a bird alive, although Toki's only been that way a coupla days."

The food congealed into a hard lump in Skwisgaar's throat; with some effort, he managed to swallow, although it hurt him to do so. "Toki…" he began, and paused to compose himself. He didn't want his tone of voice to give anything away. "Toki's not been eatingks eithers? Dat's weird, he's usuallies eatingks everyt'ingks."

"I know, right," Pickles said, his lips around the head of the bottle. "Poor kid, he seemed kinda weird t'night, upset or somethin'."

Skwisgaar felt his heart skip a beat (or twelve) as Pickles took another long sip.

"F-for reals?" He could have killed himself for the stutter, but Pickles didn't seem to notice; it was very obvious that he was fairly well smashed. "How longs has he been actingks likes dat?"

Pickles shrugged. "Who knows, eh? I jus' noticed it t'night. He coulda been depressed for th' past week for all I know. Hell, for all I remember, y'know I don't stay sober."

_That's the truth, _Skwisgaar thought, starting in on the second half of the godforsaken sandwich. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him as if Pickles' drinking (and drug abuse) had picked up considerably in the past two years or so. Sometimes even Skwisgaar thought the man had a problem.

As Skwisgaar tucked the last bit of PB&J into his mouth, Pickles began snickering. The blond chewed, swallowed, and asked, "What's beingks so funnies, Pickle?"

"Had Nathan an' Murderface thinkin' you had cancer earlier," Pickles laughed; it had apparently gotten funnier the drunker he got. "Only did so's I could fuck with Charles, I called him in here t'tell him he had t'go ask ya if ya had it, but Toki stopped him, said y'told him ya were nappin' or somethin'. He was lyin' his little ass off, a'course, we all know you two haven't spoke in days…why's that, by th'way?"

It was ridiculous how nearly ever word Pickles said was like another rock adding to the weight on Skwisgaar's chest. He was tempted to just get up and leave, but that might be a little _too _obvious. Instead, he chose to lie.

_I'm getting good at lying, _he thought, as he opened his mouth to explain that Toki was still pissed about the black eye.

"Not th'first one you've given him, eh?" Pickles laughed. "He covered yer ass, though. Oh, Charles wants ya t'go see him sometime, sahry 'bout that. Guess he wants t'make sure y'don't really have cancer."

_Great, _Skwisgaar thought, smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand. _Now I've got the Robot on my case. Fucking fantastic._

"I know how ya feel, chief," Pickles was tilting his chair back again as he took another drink of rum. "He's always callin' me in there to discuss my 'alcohol problem' or whatever."

"You do gots a problem," Skwisgaar said, before he could stop himself.

Pickles replied by pushing the bottle of coconut rum toward Skwisgaar.

"A'course I have a problem," he answered, tossing his pocketknife toward the Swede. "And for t'night, yer gonna have a problem with me, eh? Ya look like you could use a drink. Several drinks."

Skwisgaar felt what little blood there was in his face drain away. _How was he able to tell that something's wrong?_

"Don't look so shocked, Blondie," Pickles said. "Seriously, ya haven't been at dinner in days and you've actually been fuckin' up at practice. So, y'know my philosophy…ain't a problem that alcohol can't solve, so open that fucker, awright?"

Skwisgaar—who had already been working to open the bottle as Pickles spoke—responded by yanking the cork out with his teeth and spitting it out over Pickles' shoulder.

"Cheers, ya bitch," Pickles grinned, and held up his bottle. Skwisgaar clinked their bottles together.

"Cheers," he mumbled, knowing that getting shitfaced wouldn't help anything, knowing that getting shitfaced would actually just make everything worse, but deciding to go through with it anyway because Pickles had actually noticed that something was wrong, and Pickles was actually offering to help fix it…or to try to fix it.

"Now," Pickles said, tilting his chair back again, "Let's get drunk, shall we?"

"I's will drinks to dat," Skwisgaar said, and turned the bottle up. The rum was warm and sweet and light, liquid heaven after that sandwich.

"Excellent," said Pickles, and took another drink himself.

For the next hour, Pickles and Skwisgaar sat in the dining room of Mordhaus, growing steadily more intoxicated. It wasn't long before they found themselves discussing their band mates, psychoanalyzing the men who had been their friends for so long with a particular confidence that only very drunk people seem to possess.

"Will is fucked up," Pickles stated; in their drunkenness, they had lapsed into calling Murderface by his first name, something none of them had done in years. "Worse'n any of us, if y'ask me, that fackin' shit with the chainsaw an' his dad? Fack."

"_Ja, ja," _Skwisgaar was nodding, purposefully blocking his own childhood from his mind. "I's be knowingks what…whats it be dat's you be meaningks."

Pickles laughed. "Dood, yer fackin' English gets worse when yer drunk, ya know it?"

"I's be knowingks dis," Skwisgaar was starting in on his second bottle of coconut rum; Pickles had long since finished the first bottle of pineapple and was maybe a quarter through the second. Only the silver tequila sat unopened. "I's be t'inkingks dat…dat it's not be just de…de chay…" Skwisgaar paused, searching his mind for the English words. It was true; he had a harder time with English when he was drunk. "De chay-n-saws, t'ingks, dat is be makingks Will be actingks likes…likes he does, how he be doesingks de collectingks of de swords and shit. It's beingks in de ways da the is beingks tryingks to be handlingks…it."

"Right-o there, chiefy," Pickles agree happily, without actually having the slightest idea what it was that Skwisgaar had been attempting to say. He chugged a bit of the rum, too drunk to taste the pineapple.

"Nat'ans is beingks…is beingks de onlies' ones of us what's dat is beingk's sort of okies. Wells, you an' Nat'ans I means," Skwisgaar added, gesturing toward the redhead with his bottle.

Pickles snorted. "None of us is okay, dood. We're all facked up, jus' some of us worse'n others."

"_Ja, _buts whats de t'ingks I's be tryingks to be sayingks is dis," the blond ran a hand through his hair and pointed a shaky finger at the drummer. "Yous parents, yous mothser and _fada, _dey never…dey was never beingks doingks de…de hittingks, rights?"

Pickles shrugged, and snorted again. "Got spanked when I was a kid, m'dad punched me once when I was fourteen, caught me doin' cocaine, an' Seth beat th' shit outta me whenever it suited him, til I got old enough t'fight back."

"Hows olds was dat beingks?"

"Considerin' Seth ain't that much older'n me, prob'ly aroun' the time I was six," said Pickles, trying not to remember how he'd always let Seth win, because Seth was his big brother and little Pickles idolized him. "Yeah, we fought I reckon, but I was never like…abused or nothin'. Not physically."

"Yous and Nat'ans and Will nevers gots de beatingks," Skwisgaar pointed out, "Yous were gettingks fucksed wit', I's nots beingks sayingks dat yous not, but…"

"Yer…yer mom beat ya? I don't think I knew that, dood," Pickles let the front legs of his chair thump back to the ground. He was leaning toward Skwisgaar as if he wanted to do something for him, but wasn't sure what _to _do, exactly.

Skwisgaar froze for a moment, bathed in a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with the alcohol in his system, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was another lie.

"She beats me, _ja, _buts…dats…dats its, reallies." He poured more liquor down his throat, as if it were a chaser for some particular horrible memory...which, in a way, it was.

"Man," Pickles sighed. "We had it rough, I guess, but you and Toki…shit, you two had it the worse, no question. Dood, shouldn't you be pukin' right now? Since we're talkin' about parents an' shit?"

Pickles. winced when he saw Skwisgaar's throat tighten up, saw his Adam's apple working, but Skwisgaar managed to keep control of himself.

"We's…not be talkingks about de bitch spefik…spekil…_spuh-sif-ick-a-lees," _he articulated carefully, shoving the memory of his mother and all the memories attached to her deeply into the far recesses of his mind. "Buts…maybes we shoulds be changingks de subsject, afore I starts."

"No problem, man," Pickles took another drink, tilting his chair back again. "I don't like thinkin' about it any more'n you do, to be honest. Let's talk about…fack, I dunno, you got a girl?"

Skwisgaar felt a sudden, near-uncontrollable urge to laugh. Instead, he put on a slightly deranged grin, and gave a noncommittal, "I's maybes beingks havingks and somet'ingks. Yous, Pickle?"

Pickles _did _laugh uncontrollably, for a very long time, before he set all four chair legs back on the ground and snickered, "No, dood. No, I don't got a girl."

They continued talking, with Skwisgaar's English growing progressively worse the drunker he became. It was well after two o'clock in the morning when Pickles sat his bottle—only about a quarter full, now—on the table with a _thump, _caught Skwisgaar's eyes in a bleary gaze and declared, "I don' know what th' fack yer sayin' anymore, ya goddamn foreigner."

Skwisgaar began to giggle, and then to laugh. He tilted his chair back on two legs as Pickles had been doing all night, but Pickles, seeing the opportunity for a _really _good laugh, simply swept the remaining legs of the chair out from under Skwisgaar with his foot, dumping him to the floor in a drunken Swedish lump. Skwisgaar managed to spill a good deal of rum down his chest in the process, making the entire dining room reek of coconuts.

The heavy chair made a loud, echoing _thud _on the stone floor, so loud that both men froze for a moment in surprise. When the echoes died out, they began to laugh again; even Skwisgaar, who could already feel the purple bruise rising on his tailbone, couldn't help but crack up.

"Yous to be doingks de helpingks of me ups," Skwisgaar demanded, holding out one hand a grinning devilishly.

Pickles, drunk as he was, did not correctly interpret the meaning of this grin, and did as he was told. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, legs tangled with Skwisgaar's, the rest of his pineapple rum in a spreading puddle underneath them. The smell of the two fruity liquors was absolutely overwhelming.

"De smells," Skwisgaar said, snickering, "De smells is beingks in de…in de…fucks, I is t'inkingks about trop…trop-ee-kull islandses, Pickle, we's in fuckin' Huh-why-ee!" The blond cried, and the two of them dissolved into hysterical laughter once more. Skwisgaar had to lay flat on his back in the rum-puddle just to breathe properly; Pickles had pushed himself up on his hands in the slick, sticky mess, hovering over his band mate and laughing.

It wasn't until Charles walked through the archway into the dining room, cinching the belt of his dark robe and saying, "What the hell is going on down—" that their laughter came to a halt.

Charles stood just inside the archway, staring down at the spectacle in front of him with an expression on his face that Skwisgaar couldn't read; it looked almost as if someone had punched him in the stomach. It was enough to get Skwisgaar giggling again—he'd never seen the Robot speechless in his life—but Pickles seemed to have been struck cold sober.

"Charlie—" he said, and tried to stand up. Instead, he only succeeded in slipping on the wet floor; he came down hard on his ass, losing his wallet and soaking his jeans in liquor.

"You fucking drunk," Charles said coldly. He turned and left.

"Fack," Pickles muttered, scrambling to stand up again, "Fackfackfackfack—FACK!"

Pickles had actually managed to gain his feet; it was when he tried to take a step that the true level of his drunkenness betrayed him and he fell again, this time on his face.

"Goddamn it," he hissed angrily, rising onto his hands and knees. He seemed to have forgotten that Skwisgaar existed at all. He crawled until he escaped the slick, sticky area of the floor, then grabbed the edge of the dining room table and stood up. He swayed a little, then began to make his slow, weaving way out of the archway and into the hall, following Charles.

Skwisgaar watched him, go, sitting up and wringing liquor out of the ends of his blond hair.

"_What the fuck was that about?" _he mumbled to himself, lapsing into Swedish. He grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself to his feet.

"_Skwis…Skwisgaar?"_

The Swede nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Toki's voice. He whirled around, nearly falling on his ass like Pickles, but he reached behind him and steadied himself with the table edge just in time.

Toki was standing just inside the archway that Charles and Pickles had recently exited. He was wearing a wifebeater, black pajama pants, and the cutest confused expression Skwisgaar had ever seen.

_Oh fuck, there he is. He's there. Oh, fuck, _Skwisgaar's mind reeled and he opened his mouth to speak. To his horror, all that came out was a long, fruity burp; he could have died from embarrassment right then and there, had Toki not grinned broadly and tried to stifle his snicker behind one hand. Skwisgaar smiled sheepishly. He raised one hand in a greeting.

And just like that, the ice between them had broken.

"_What are you doing down here?" _Skwisgaar asked, trying once again to take a step. He slipped and grabbed the table again.

"_I was building a plane when Pickles started screaming obscenities," _Toki replied, _"It startled me so badly I smashed a wing. I wanted to know what was going on; I liked that model. What was he yelling about, anyway?"_

Skwisgaar shrugged. _"Fuck if I know." _He tried to let go of the table again, slipped again, caught himself again. _"And fuck this mess he made!" _he added angrily, shaking one of his legs; the liquor had soaked into the hem of his jeans.

Toki snickered again. _"You look pretty stupid right now, in case you didn't know."_

"_Believe me, I know," _Skwisgaar sighed. He let go of the table slowly, carefully, making sure he kept his balance even though the world seemed to be on a teeter-totter. _"Will you give me your hand so I can get out of here without busting my ass?"_

Toki's eyes widened a fraction of an inch; he opened his mouth, closed it; a bright blush crept along his cheeks and he mumbled, _"Yeah, I guess so."_

He stepped toward the edge of the liquor puddle and extended a hand. Skwisgaar blinked a few times and squinted, trying to make himself see only one hand instead of four.

When the images finally converged together, he clasped Toki's arm just below the elbow; Toki's fingers closed all the way around his upper lower bicep. He took a tentative step and wobbled, but Toki helped him balance. Soon, his sticky feet were tacking to dry ground.

"_Thanks," _he muttered, reluctantly releasing Toki's arm. Toki himself made no reply; he was flexing his fingers in front of his face with a mildly disgusted look.

"_What's that look for?" _Skwisgaar asked, bracing himself against the wall and bending down to pick up Pickles' abandoned wallet.

"_Your arms are all sticky," _Toki said. He poked Skwisgaar's sunken stomach once, then looked at his fingers. _"Your stomach is all sticky, too. What ere you and Pickles doing down there?"_

Skwisgaar jerked his head to look at Toki, hearing the accusation in the other man's voice. Unfortunately, his level of intoxication did not mix well with head-jerking, and he had to lean against the wall for a moment in order to still his swimming vision.

He turned his head a little more slowly this time, attempting to look Toki in his eyes, which were narrowed in suspicion. _"Toki," _Skwisgaar said, keeping his voice as steady as possible. _"You're an idiot."_

"_Why? You're the manwhore around here, Skwisgaar, not me," _the Norwegian answered quietly.

"_Do you really think I'd been whoring around with Pickles, Toki?" _Skwisgaar asked, at last managing to stand on his own two feet without falling or needing support. He stood close to Toki, looking down at the shorter man, who was wearing an uneasy expression.

"_You might," _Toki answered at length. _"How would I know?"_

"_And you were worried about _me _not trusting _you," Skwisgaar said, rolling his eyes.

"_I…I mean, that's…oh, fuck you, you fucking Swede," _Toki grumbled. He stepped away from Skwisgaar and crossed his powerful arms across his chest. _"Why were you down here with him, anyway? You weren't at dinner."_

"_We were drinking together," _Skwisgaar answered, _"And…we made a mess." _He looked toward the broken chair, overturned bottles, and shiny puddle and shook his head.

"_I'll say," _Toki remarked. He dipped a bare toe in the puddle. _"You must have been shitfaced."_

"_Very," _Skwisgaar replied, a little absently. He had opened Pickles' wallet—he had been bouncing it around in his hands as he and Toki talked—and was flipping through the picture section.

"_Hey, wait," _Toki said, when he saw what Skwisgaar was doing, _"That's private, you shouldn't—"_

Skwisgaar suddenly sucked in his breath, cutting Toki off mid-sentence, his blue eyes widening in shock. _"What the fuck?"_

"_What, what?" _Toki stood on his tiptoes to see—Skwisgaar had brought the wallet all the way up to his face in surprise. _"Let me see!"_

Skwisgaar handed the wallet to Toki without a word; Toki promptly dropped it, as if burned.

Amongst pictures of his family (the faces of his parents were obscured by marker-mustaches and horns; Seth's head was cut out entirely) and the pictures of his liquor bottle collection, Pickles had inexplicably included a picture of Charles Ofdensen, the band's manager.

And Charles was shirtless.


	4. Chapter 4

"_You've got to give it back, Skwis."_

Toki's voice echoed inside Skwisgaar's swirling mind as he made his way down the corridor toward Pickles' bedroom. He had been all set just to sneak into the drummer's room and leave the wallet, thereby avoiding any controversy, but Toki insisted that giving it back in person was the better way.

_Leave it to Toki to be the only honest one in the band, _Skwisgaar thought, but he couldn't suppress the smile that broken across his features when he remembered their conversation.

For three days they had been leery about giving the wallet back, mainly because one had _seen _Pickles for three days, not even at band practice. Nathan and Murderface had gone up to his room to check on him, but they had both been unceremoniously thrown out.

"He'sch on a binge," Murderface told them, rubbing his blackened right eye angrily. "Pisschy drunk too, ain't he, Nathan?"

Nathan's lip was bleeding. "Fucker's out of his mind," was all he had to say.

Later that night, Toki had decided it was time to return the wallet…and let Pickles know they knew his secret.

"_Why do we have to do that?" _Skwisgaar had asked.

Toki had shrugged. _"He needs somebody."_

At that, Skwisgaar had been speechless. Toki was really the only member of the band who was at all thoughtful, at all emotional.

At least he used to be, until Skwisgaar had seen him crouched alone in his closet, struck speechless by the horror of his own childhood. Skwisgaar had been overcome with pity for his fellow guitar player, pit and a crazy, almost rabid desire to protect, to comfort.

Skwisgaar shook away the memory. He had reached Pickles' door, and as much as he enjoyed thinking about Toki, he knew things were far from perfect. Toki still didn't quite believe that nothing had happened between him and Pickles that night, and Skwisgaar was forced to admit that he couldn't blame him.

He took a deep, steadying breath. If things went according to plan, Pickles might be able to help him with Toki. With that thought in mind, he raised his fist to knock on the door. He rapped a few times, but no one answered.

"Pickle! Hey, Pickle, opens da doors, is Skwisgaar!" he called.

His hand came down into air when Pickles complied with the request, opening the door and gazing up at Skwisgaar with bleary, confused eyes.

All thoughts of getting help from this ghost of a man went out of Skwisgaar's mind immediately. Pickles' eyes were so bloodshot and hazy that they seemed more red than white. He was shirtless, his little beer belly just overlapping the waistband of a filthy pair of blue jeans. He smelled like whiskey, weed, and sweat, and Skwisgaar felt a twist of the same emotion he had felt when he found Toki in his closet. This was…wrong.

"Whaddaya want, ya fackin' Swede?" Pickles asked. He brought a bottle to his lips, discovered that it was empty, and chucked it blindly behind him. He didn't even flinch when it crashed against his dresser; he leaned heavily on the doorknob, which turned in his hand a made him stumble.

"Pickle," Skwisgaar said quietly, "Yous be lettingks me ins now. We's gots to be talkingks."

"Yer awfully p'lite," Pickles muttered. "Nat'n an' Murderface jus' barged right on in." He stepped back, nearly lost his balance, and grabbed the edge of the door to steady himself.

"They don'ts be knowingks ezzakly whats wrongs," Skwisgaar answered, moving the wallet to his left hand and putting his right arm around Pickles' shoulders. He guided the shorter man to the bed, which consisted of nothing but a bare mattress at the moment; the sheets, pillows, and comforter had been chucked into a corner. Skwisgaar didn't ask why.

"Yous be layingks down," Skwisgaar said, pushing gently against Pickles' chest as he glanced around the room. Half-smoked joints lay in various ashtrays, surrounded by the crushed filters of Marlboros; a broken syringe lay in two pieces on the coffee table; a razor blade rested in a fine dusting of white powder on the dresser; empty liquor bottles and beer cans crowded every surface of the room.

"Ya got my wallet," Pickles' said, and his voice was suddenly clear, sober. He sat up in his bed, eyes wide with poorly concealed panic. "Why ya got my wallet, Blondie?"

"Yous drops it de others nights, whens we was drinkingks," Skwisgaar answered calmly. He handed it back. "After de managers sees us."

Pain flickered across Pickles' face, but didn't linger. He tucked the wallet back in his pocket and gave Skwisgaar a suspicious look. "Didja look in it?"

Watching Pickles carefully, Skwisgaar said, _"Ja." _There was no point in lying.

The next thing he knew, Pickles had him pinned against the wall, one needle-tracked forearm pressing hard against his throat. Skwisgaar could feel his feet still on the floor, Pickles wasn't tall enough to pick him up, but he still marveled at Pickles' speed and strength; for a shitfaced drunk, it was pretty amazing.

"Ya breathe one word'a this an' I'ma cut those purty fingers a'yers off one by one, ya got that, Blondie?" Pickles hissed through gritted teeth. His face was so close to Skwisgaar's that the Swede had a completely random thought that there was no way Pickles' teeth were that white, not with his lifestyle…then the pressure on his throat increased and he managed a strained nod.

"Good." Pickles let him go, seeming to shrink a few inches as he did so; he had had to stand on tiptoe just to reach Skwisgaar's throat. "Now why don'tcha leave me alone? I know ya only came back here t'make fun of me or somethin'."

"Whys de fucks everybodies always t'inkingks I makes fun ofs dem?" asked Skwisgaar, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration. "I's nots a complete dildoes, dammit!"

"Ya coulda fooled me, Blondie," Pickles sighed, sitting down on the edge of his mattress and digging in his jeans pocket for his cigarettes. He pulled one out of the pack with his teeth, lit it, then tossed the pack and the lighter onto his bedside table. "Yer always a douchebeag, y'know. Makin' fun a'Toki like ya do."

"I's never makes fun of Toki agains," the blond said, and his voice was so fervent that Pickles looked up at him in surprise.

"Holy shit," the drummer said, cigarette clinging to his lip, "Ya got a thing fer Toki, don'tcha?"

Again, Skwisgaar didn't see the point in lying. He nodded. _"Ja, ja…_and I t'inks…I t'inks he, wells, gots a t'ingks fors me too, buts…he t'inks dat me and yous has somet'ingks goingks on, afters de others night."

"What a fackin' coincidence, that's what Charlie thinks," Pickles mumbled, standing up and taking a deep drag off his cigarette. Suddenly, he lashed out with his sneakers and kicked the nearest liquor bottle; it careened into the air, struck the mirror above his dresser and shattered, leaving a long, ugly crack in the reflective glass. "Didn't seem to fackin' notice we both had our fackin' pants on."

"Buts yous nots sleepingks arounds wit' whatevers moves," Skwisgaar said. "Whys he be t'inkingks dat?"

Pickles stared angrily at the cracked mirror. He ashed onto the carpet and answered, "'Cause I was drinkin'. Fack, I was drunk, ain't no doubt about that, an' it's always me bein' drunk or high or what the fack ever, he can't fackin' stand it. Says he don't trust me, don't like how I act, thinks it's gonna kill me."

"Er…wills you hits me if I's be agreeingks wit' da managers?" Skwisgaar asked. Pickles only shook his head and laid back down on his bed, holding what was left of his cigarette in his left hand.

"Fack, yer right," he mumbled, and dropped the butt into a beer can. "Yer both right. He ain't spoke t'me in three days, an look what the fack I'm doin', what I'm fackin' reduced to. I puked on my fackin' sheets an' barely had enough sense t'strip my fackin' bed 'fore I passed out. I dunno what it's gonna take fer me t'change, I'm too fackin' old."

"Yous nots old, Pickle," Skwisgaar said bracingly. He sat down at the foot of the bed. "Ands I gots an ideas."

"Oh, shit," Pickles sat up, crossing his legs Indian style and looking across at Skwisgaar skeptically. "This better be good, douchebeag."

Skwisgaar shrugged. "Is nots such a bads plans, I t'inks. I's go talks to de managers, yous go talks to Toki, we explains whats be happeningks…and den, wells…we boths cross de…de…dat t'ing dats goes over de waters whens we comes to it."

The shadow of a smile played at Pickles' lips beneath his overgrown goatee; when it at last broke into a true grin, he nodded. "All right, dood. I'll give it shot if you will."

Skwisgaar smiled back, holding out his hand. Pickles grabbed for it, missed, and grabbed again; the second time, he actually managed to get it. They shook.

"Charlie'll be in his office, far's I know," Pickles said, standing up. He wobbled a bit, then made his way to his closet, grabbing indifferently for a t-shirt. As he shrugged into it, he asked where Toki was.

"Outs to be ins his rooms," Skwisgaar answered, as the drummer followed him out into the hall.

"All right, Blondie," Pickles snapped off a sloppy salute as he started off in the direction of Toki's room. "I'll letcha know how it goes!"

"Sames," the Swede said, and he started for the manager's office.

It wasn't until a few minutes later, while he was standing in front of the Robot's door, that Skwisgaar remembered that he had never really _talked _to the man all that much.

_Actually, _he thought, hand poised to knock, _Have I _ever _talked to him?_

The door opened before he could answer himself, and Charles Ofdensen ran smack into his chest, nose colliding with Skwisgaar's sternum.

"Pardon me," the manager muttered, polite as ever…except there was an underlying current of ice that wasn't usually there, even when the manager was in his most monotonous of moods.

"Wheres you goingks, Ro…I means, Charles?" Skwisgaar asked, as the manager tried to maneuver around him. "I's gots to be talkingks to yous."

"About what, Skwisgaar? I'm, ah…very busy today, actually, if you could, ah…come back later…"

Skwisgaar read the _how about never? _that 'later' implied, and reached around to grab Charles' arm was he tried to walk away again.

"It's 'bouts Pickle, Charles," he said. The muscles under his fingers went rigid.

Charles cleared his throat, and turned to look at Skwisgaar. His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever, but that wasn't surprising; Charles hardly ever displayed emotion in front of his band.

"What about Pickles?" he asked, his tone so controlled and casual that it sent a chill up Skwisgaar's spine; he thought of that as Charles' 'bread and butter' tone, and released Charles' arm immediately.

"Cans we…cans we be goingks into yours offices? I's…feels more comfortables dat way." He looked nervously up and down the hallway; if Nathan or Murderface walked by, this would look a little strange.

"If you wish," Charles replied, in that same unnerving tone. He opened the door again and gestured into the room. Skwisgaar walked inside and sat down gingerly in one of the little leather chairs in front of Charles' desk. The room was, as always, immaculate and spotless. Skwisgaar felt dirty just being in it.

Charles leaned against the front of his desk, a little too close to Skwisgaar for comfort. He looked down at him and simply said, "Proceed."

"Me and Pickle was absodaluties _not_ fuckins," Skwisgaar said right away, with his usual lack of tact. "We was drunks, _ja, _buts whats had happens was dat Pickle knocks me outs my chairs, which was dildoes, and whens I falls down I tells him he's to be helpingks me gets up—wells, nots _dat _gettingks ups, you knows whats I means—and den I pulls him down on tops me, 'cept I wasn'ts _wantingks _hims on tops me, ezzaklies, he just felleds dat ways, and de rums hads spilts everywheres ands it was alls overs us, and…and…_ja. _Dat's…dat's whats happen."

Skwisgaar promptly looked down at his hands, which were twitching along invisible strings aagain; he realized that his was probably not a very good explanation of the night's events. Charles was silent, whether speechless or angry, Skwisgaar didn't know.

"You do know, Skwisgaar, that if you tell anyone about Pickles and I, I will be forced to kill you. I will, of course, find a way to make it look like an unfortunate accident." His voice was as monotonous as ever, but it lacked that icy, threatening hint and Skwisgaar was able to let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Yous don't s gots to be killingks me, Charles," He answered. "I's gots de sames probslems yous gots. Kinds of, maybes."

"Oh, really?" Charles raised an eyebrow. "Do explain."

He spilled out the story of himself and Toki without thinking twice; Pickles had been too fucked up to help him, and Charles was the only other person Skwisgaar could turn to.

"…so Toki doesn'ts believes me, cause he doesn'ts be trustingks me, which is dildoes because he was gettingks upsets wit' _me _for not trustingks _him…_is all dildoes," he finished.

To Skwisgaar's surprise, Charles actually laughed.

"I believe that if Pickles explains things to Toki well enough, things will turn out all right for the two of you," Charles said. "You can tell Pickles he's forgiven, as well…for the most part. He'll know what you mean."

"Yeah, I know whatcha mean, Charlie," said a distinctive voice from the doorway. Skwisgaar and Charles looked up to find Pickles leaning against the doorjamb, one hand resting on the knob.

"Sorry, Charlie, didn't mean t'eavesdrop or whatever," he added. He was smiling, albeit tentatively. Skwisgaar thought he sounded a hell of a lot more sober than he actually was.

"It's quite all right, Pickles," said Charles. "Skwisgaar, will you excuse us?" His voice was polite, but it was evident that he only had eyes for Pickles.

"_Ja, ja," _Skwisgaar stood up quickly, shooting Pickles an inquisitive glance as he moved past him into the hall.

"Kid wants to talk to ya, Blondie, he's up in yer room," the redhead said absently. He shut the door behind Skwisgaar without looking at him.

_I wonder if Toki wanting to talk is a good sign or a bad one, _Skwisgaar thought, as he walked down the hall. He tried to make himself move at a normal pace, although his feet were itching to fly.

It was no use. Skwisgaar was impatient by nature and took off down the hallway, his long legs taking strides that would shame any Olympic runner. He was wondering if it would be possible to take the stairs three at a time when he ran smack into Nathan's broad chest.

"Dude, what the fuck?" the frontman asked, catching Skwisgaar by the shoulders when he bounced off him and stumbled backward.

"Uh…I's…um, I…" Skwisgaar stammered for a moment; he could feel the heat rising into his cheeks and began to panic slightly. "Uh…bathrooms!"

"Uh, the bathroom's the other way, you numb fuck," Nathan said, raising one dark eyebrow.

"Oh." Skwisgaar mentally smacked himself as he turned to walk back in the direction he had come. "Rights."

"Dude, are you…like…okay?" Nathan asked; his tone implied that he suspected Skwisgaar of trying to hide some violent mental illness. "You've been, uh…acting….weird. Lately."

"I's fines!" Skwisgaar answered over his shoulder; he was aware that his voice was a little too bright and wished that Nathan would leave.

"If you say so," answered Nathan, and walked after him…turning to stop at the manager's door.

Nathan had one big hand wrapped around the doorknob when Skwisgaar finally got enough sense about him to snap, "Don'ts go in theres!"

Nathan looked over at him in annoyance. "Why the fuck not?"

"Er….mangers just lefts, I seens him goingks down de hall…dis way, past de bathrooms!" Skwisgaar answered, pointing into the dim corridor beyond the bathroom door.

"Okay…" Nathan said, edging past Skwisgaar as if he expected the Swede to suddenly begin speaking in tongues. "Uh…see ya."

Skwisgaar didn't breathe until Nathan turned the corner and disappeared from sight; then, he did an about-face and ran. He found it was indeed possible for him to take the steps three at a time.

Once he came to the hallway outside his and Toki's bedrooms, however, Skwisgaar found his excited rush tapering off. He slowed to a fast walk…then a normal walk…then little more than a shuffle. He couldn't stop himself from wondering just exactly what it was that Toki wanted to discuss with him. On one hand, it could be a good thing that Toki wanted to talk. It could show that he was willing to make it work, even if he perceived that Skwisgaar didn't trust him.

_And it's not that I don't trust him, _the blond thought, coming to a halt less than five feet from his own room. _I trust him the most out of everyone, probably…we have the most in common, we've known each other the longest, of course I'd trust him the most. But how can…how can I trust anyone…with…_that_?_

A thick, foul taste flooded his mouth, as if all his saliva had congealed into a poisonous paste. He tried to swallow and found that he had forgotten how. He was choking on his own spit, and he remembered his and Toki's last encounter in his bedroom, he remembered Toki coming to check on him despite how hateful he had been, he remembered the way Toki knew he was lying about his dreams, about what he had been on the verge of saying before he—

Skwisgaar's thoughts cut themselves off and he doubled over. The half-digested contents of a pitiful lunch scorched their way up his throat, spilled over his lips, and splashed to the stone floor in a reeking puddle, but Skwisgaar wasn't finished. He was driven to his knees as his body forced up a bitter wash of bile and blood, as the muscles of his stomach seized with sharp, stinging pains.

It was over and cleaned up so quickly that Skwisgaar, his foggy mind clearing, wondered if it had happened at all. Two Gears had picked him up and supported him as two others cleaned up the mess; one had produced a bottle of water and politely requested that Skwisgaar rinse his mouth, which he did absently; the next thing he knew the last one was disappearing, pressing a pack of gum into his hand as she did so.

He chewed the gum without really tasting it—in all honesty he never really tasted much of anything—and took a moment to remember what he had been doing a moment before. He skipped quickly over the thoughts that had preceded his sickness.

_He doesn't trust me either, _Skwisgaar thought, forgetting that Toki was waiting for him and leaning back against the corridor wall. He crossed his arms and raised his left foot, resting it against the wall as well, and began to gnaw at his full lower lip. _If neither of us trusts the other, how is this supposed to work? Does…does Toki even _want _it to work? And fuck, what kind of _it _are we talking about, anyway? Are we supposed to just keep it a secret, like Pickles and the manager, or will we…what do you call it…come out?_

Skwisgaar shivered as he tried to imagine Nathan's and Murderface's reactions should they ever see he and Toki holding hands…or worse, kissing…

"_Are you going to stand there all day looking broody and handsome, or are you going to come talk to me?"_

Skwisgaar's raised foot hit the ground hard at the sound of Toki's voice; he choked on his gum for a moment, then managed to cough it back into his mouth before it could gag him. He looked up, eyes wide, and said, _"Shit, Toki, you scared me!"_

Toki forced himself not to start laughing; he merely smiled. _"I walked up the hall from my room, you should have seen me coming."_

"_Sorry. I was just…just thinking."_

"_You're not supposed to be thinking, you're supposed to be talking. Remember?"_

Skwisgaar smiled at him, running his fingers through his hair. He shrugged. _"I'm just nervous, I guess."_

Toki turned his head to one side, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. _"What the hell are you nervous about? I don't bite, you know…" _he paused, then smirked a bit. "_Much."_

Once again, Toki had to stop himself from laughing out loud; Skwisgaar's pale face had flushed bright red at his words.

"_I…yeah," _Skwisgaar said. He was indeed trying bravely to eliminate the images that were rising to his mind. He had no success whatsoever and felt his cheeks growing warm.

"_So what is there to be nervous about?" _asked Toki. _"Come on, before Nathan or Murderface walks by." _He held out his hand.

Skwisgaar laid his palm against Toki's with only the barest trace of hesitation and allowed Toki to pull him into the bedroom.

"_How did it go with the manager?" _he asked, shutting the door behind Skwisgaar and leading him to the bed. He collapsed into the fluffy white pillows as if it were his own bedroom. Skwisgaar sat down beside him.

"_Get your feet off my comforter, jackass," _he said, but Toki just kicked his booted feet around and stuck out his tongue.

"_Fuck you," _said Skwisgaar, but he was laughing when he spoke. _"I guess it went okay, he and Pickles were talking when I left. Ah…how did it go with you? You and Pickles?"_

Toki shrugged. _"He told me there was nothing going on between you two."_

Skwisgaar, who had assumed that much, rolled his eyes. _"And?"_

"_And I believe him," _Toki said. _"I'm sorry I didn't believe you, but…"_

"_I know, I know," _Skwisgaar sighed, and cradled his forehead in one hand. _"I'm a slut."_

"_Yeah," _Toki said, nodding. _"Yeah, you are."_

_Shit. That doesn't sound good. _Skwisgaar felt himself wince slightly, and covered his face with his hands. He sensed Toki moving around on the bed, and a moment later felt the warmth of his band mate's body as Toki leaned against his shoulder.

"_You're a slut, all right," _Toki repeated, and sighed a little. _"But…"_

Skwisgaar looked up, resisting the urge to put his arm around Toki with great effort. _"But what, Toki? What did you want to talk about?"_

Toki turned his head slightly, looking up and into Skwisgaar's eyes. _"I figured…you're only a slut with girls. And grannies, of course." _He tried for a smile, meaning for the last bit to be a joke, but his anxiety was too real, and the result was half-hearted.

Skwisgaar realized that he was, once again, blushing. How the hell did Toki always manage to do that to him?

"_And if you've only been such a man whore with women, you haven't had a chance to be sleeping around with a bunch of guys…have you?" _Toki asked. He had to fight with himself to keep the hopeful element out of his voice.

Skwisgaar could sense that Toki wasn't sure about this, and it hurt him…especially since he—

A familiar taste flooded his mouth and Skwisgaar immediately changed the course of his thoughts.

"_I haven't thought about a guy like this until you," _he said. It was a lie.

_But only half a lie, _Skwisgaar told himself, _And what else can I do?_

The smile that broke out on Toki's face was beautiful. As guilty as it made him feel, it was contagious, and Skwisgaar felt himself smiling too.

"_I believe you, Skwis," _Toki said. _"And…you don't have to worry about me not trusting you any more. Okay?"_

Skwisgaar nodded. _"Okay, Toki."_

"_And I don't have to worry about you not trusting me, either…at least, not in the sense that you'd be worried I was sleeping around," _Toki continued.

Skwisgaar shook his head again, still smiling. This conversation was so surreal; he expected to wake up at any minute, tangled in his bedsheets.

"_All I'm worried about, Skwis, is you."_

Skwisgaar was utterly taken aback, just as Toki had expected him to be. _"What do you mean, you're worried about me?" _he asked. _"There's nothing to be worried about, Toki."_

"_Yes, there _is!" Toki answered. He clenched his fists together in frustration, wishing he had the words to make Skwisgaar see; he looked up at him again as if daring the taller man to defy him. _"I've been worried about you ever since you woke me up screaming in your sleep. I've been worrying about the things that you wouldn't tell me the last time we were here. You took care of me while I was out of my mind in the closet, but you wouldn't—you _won't—_let me help you when you start thinking about your mother. Yes, I know it's your mother, Skwisgaar, nothing else can effect you so strongly, and I could help you but you won't let me. It's not supposed to work that way. We're supposed to take care of each other…it's not supposed to be you taking care of me and me doing nothing, but I can't do _anything, _because you won't let me in…and all I want to do is help you like you do for me. Like you've always done for me."_

Toki looked away the moment his little speech was over, blinking back the tears that threatened his eyes. He focused himself intently on a corner of Skwisgaar's ceiling, but it was of little use. He felt the tears spilling over again, and for the third time, he found himself crying like a child in front of Skwisgaar. In all his life with the band, there had never been anything more embarrassing than crying, but crying in front of Skwisgaar had always been especially mortifying.

_Or it used to be, _Toki thought. He had discovered that people could change, even the Ice King himself, Skwisgaar Skwigelf. Barely a week ago, Skwisgaar would have been teasing him mercilessly about his childishness, would have been asking him in horrifically accented baby talk if he wanted his pacifier or his deddybear. Now, there was only the warmth of Skwisgaar's skinny arms as they wrapped around Toki's shoulders, the tickling sensation of a long-fingered hand running through his hair, and Skwisgaar's velvet voice whispering to him in Swedish, _"It's okay, Toki, you're all right, it's going to be okay."_

This time, when Toki collected himself, he didn't move from the circle of Skwisgaar's arms. Instead, he positioned himself more comfortably and laid his head on Skwisgaar's now-damp chest.

"_Sorry, Skwis," _he mumbled. _"There you go taking care of me again. I'm such a fucking baby, I swear."_

"_Eh, no, you're not," _Skwisgaar said. He pulled Toki closer, reveling in every moment he was allowed to hold him. _"You just actually, you know, let yourself _feel _something. Not like the rest of us, we're all idiots."_

"_Nathan and Murderface, maybe," _Toki said quietly. _"Not you. Not anymore."_

"_What about Pickles?" _asked Skwisgaar, twining a lock of Toki's silky dark hair around his fingers.

"_He's only a little bit of an idiot, I suppose," _Toki answered. _"He's dealing with his problems in the wrong way."_

Skwisgaar wondered if there was any _right _way to deal with the shit that each of them had been through, and decided not to think about it. He twirled Toki's hair in his fingers, smiling.

"_You've got really pretty hair, Toki."_

The smaller man in his arms laughed.

"_Why are you laughing?" _Skwisgaar asked, although he was smiling himself. _"I'm not kidding, I love it."_

"_I know," _Toki said, and smiled up at Skwisgaar. _"I was just thinking."_

"_Thinking what?"_

"_I was thinking that maybe…this might work." _Toki leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss on Skwisgaar's surprised lips before nestling back into his arms.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a little while before supper, and the boys were restless. They shifted around uncomfortably in their chairs, shooting the manager dark glances as he fiddled with his paperwork at the head of the meeting table.

"I've lined up several public appearances for most of you over the next few weeks," he said at last, as he found the pages he had been searching for in his briefcase. "Since you all seem to be, ah…having some trouble with the new album."

"Public appearansches?" said Murderface skeptically. "What kind?"

"Yeah, what have we gotta, like…do, at these things?" Nathan asked.

"Please tell me we ain't gotta go back t'the hospitals, dood," Pickles pleaded. "Y'know that didn't turn out real well."

"You won't have to visit any hospitals," Charles said; he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "William, you and Nathan will be attending a death metal music festival called Hole in the Sky. You will not be performing, you will only be there for publicity purposes, and the Hatredcopter will fly you out tomorrow morning. To ensure that no one will attempt to kill you, and to ensure that…ah, nothing is…damaged, you will be staying in the 'Copter for the weekend. I'll be sending several thousand Klokateers with you as well, because I myself will be unable to be there."

"Why are you not gonna be there?" Nathan asked. "And what are the rest of the guys gonna do?"

There was a rather lengthy pause while Charles adjusted his tie; he glanced toward Pickles, but the drummer was staring determinedly at the floor, fists clenched tightly in his lap.

"On the…" Charles began, then stopped to clear his throat. He took a deep breath and began again. "On the same day that the two of you leave, I will be taking a smaller helicopter to Orange County with Pickles."

He paused again, looking at Pickles, but this time he did not look away. The redhead looked up at him, nearly glowering; it was evident that he was not happy with whatever arrangement had been agreed upon.

"What'sch in Orange County?" Murderface asked, when it became apparent that no one else was going to speak. He was looking at Charles, but Charles was looking at Pickles, and Pickles simply looked furious.

"New Method Wellness," he mumbled under his breath; Murderface barked at him to speak up.

"New Method Wellness, douchebeag," Pickles snapped, locking his eyes back on the floor and crossing his arms tightly across his chest. "It's a fuckin' rehab center, all right, ya happy?"

He didn't see four sets of jaws drop; he didn't see the pained look on Charles' face. He simply sat there, hoping that Charles would get on with it, but for a long time there was only silence.

It was broken by Nathan. "Good for you," he grunted, and shook his hair down into a curtain around his eyes when everyone turned to look at him instead of Pickles.

"Yes…well," Charles cleared his throat again, regaining control of the situation. "I will be taking Pickles with me tomorrow morning, shortly after the two of you leave. I will be back the next day, which should be…" he consulted his notes. "Which will be Saturday. Pickles will be staying for about four weeks. When I get back on Saturday, which will be the first full day of Hole in the Sky, I will be bringing Skwisgaar and Toki to join you, Nathan, and you, William. The four of you will make an appearance at Hole in the Sky together, and we will be spreading the word that Pickles is sick with pneumonia. Understood?"

"Why can'ts me and Skwisgaar just comes tomorrows, too?" asked Toki.

"Ah…yes, thank you for asking, Toki, I forgot to mention this," said Charles, once again pawing through his briefcase for a sheaf of notes. He flipped through them a few times until he found what he was looking for. "A pair of reporters from your countries have been attempting to secure interviews with the two of you for months now, and Friday—tomorrow—was the only day that I was able to fit them in. The two of you will be receiving them in this room, actually, and there will be Klokateers at the ready, so you have nothing to worry about." Charles stuffed the papers back into his briefcase and snapped it closed.

"I suggest that all of you go pack, and then get a good night's sleep. It will be a busy weekend, and I know how all of you are." He left.

Nathan had produced a paperback as if by magic a few moments after everyone began to stare at him, but he had only been pretending to read it. His eyes were stationary, not moving back and forth across the page. His eyes, like everyone else's, had drifted toward Pickles, who was still staring at the floor. The cut on Nathan's lip where Pickles had punched him was healed, but still visible; Murderface's black eye, on the other hand, showed no signs of fading yet.

Nathan heaved a sigh, knowing it would be up to him. He cleared his throat, and four pairs of eyes came to rest on his face. He set the book aside and pushed his glassed up into his long hair, then began to study his black fingernails in earnest.

"So," he said flatly, still looking at his fingernails instead of his band mates, "I know we, uh, have this…policy, thing, about….about uh, not caring about each other, or like, not acting like it, anyway. And it's, uh…it's a good policy. Most of the time. But, uh, my point is…we're, like, a band. A damn fucking good one, too, since, uh…we're like, richer than most countries. And bands have to have, like…they have to have something that ties them together other than the, uh….other than the money and music. Uh…what I mean to say is, uh…well, fuck, does anyone remember the old days? Like back before all the money and screaming girls taking their clothes off and shit?"

"Yous means backs when Toki coulds not be speakingks de Engalishes to saves his mierables dildoes lifes?" Skwisgaar asked, but there was a smile on his face when he said it. Toki punched him on the arm; under the table, their knees touched.

"'Fore we schtarted mixschin' my bassch tracksch out?" grunted Murderface, but it was a good natured grunt, for once in his life.

"Y'mean when I was drinkin' Mr. Boston's instead a'Grey Goose?" Pickles hadn't looked up, but he was smiling halfheartedly. "An' Magnus was around?"

"I's remembers hims, kinds of," Toki remarked; although he was fifteen when he met Magnus, Toki hadn't been able to understand anything that was going on around him, and it was hard to retain memories made before he had the words to give them meaning.

"Yeah," Nathan nodded, and if there was pain in his voice, no one took notice. "Way back then. We…I don't fucking know, we uh…liked each other, or something. We had fun and no one was a pain in the ass or anything, and uh…well…what I'm trying to say is, well…fuck, for the sake of the old days, I guess, Pickles, I'm…I'm, uh, glad that you're like…getting help, 'cause uh…we don't…none of us wanna, ah…go. Through that. Again. And if any of you want to get on my case about acting like I care, I will rip your head off your shoulders and drink the blood, got it?" he added, as if he had to say something fierce and brutal to make up for his moment of sentimentality.

"_Nej, nej, _don't be worringks, Nat'ans," Skwisgaar said quietly. "I's…Pickle, I's glads yous goingks, too."

"Mes too," Toki said brightly. "I's miss you, Pickle."

"Don't take it _that _far, ya little schit," Murderface said, but there was the trace of a smile around his small eyes.

Pickles sighed heavily; he didn't think he could look at his band mates just yet, and so he looked at the ceiling instead, absolutely refusing to acknowledge the burning in the corners of his eyes that meant he was about to cry. He closed them tightly until the sensation went away, then opened them again.

"Thanks, guys," he mumbled quietly.

"Hell, ya don't even hafta get all the way clean, far's I'm conscherned," Murderface shrugged, "All of usch drink and schmoke weed like it'sch goin' outta schtyle, but…just quit the fuckin' coke and heroin and schit, that schit can kill you, an good drummersch are hard t'come by thesche daysch, ya know."

At that, Pickles finally grinned. The five of them stood up, realizing that it was time for dinner, and made their way down to the dining room. For once, it was a meal peppered with occasional snatches of conversation.

xXx

The next morning, Toki and Skwisgaar didn't bother to wake up and see their band mates off. They had wished Pickles luck the night before as he went to bed—he had drunk too much wine, but hadn't touched any liquor—and since they would be seeing Nathan and Murderface the very next day, neither of them saw the point in rising early to say goodbye.

Skwisgaar himself could have easily slept the day away; if no one woke him up, he often slept until late afternoon. Around twelve thirty on Friday, however, he was awakened by Toki pouncing on his bed.

"_Rise and shine, Skwis," _Toki said merrily, bouncing around the large bed like a kid. _ "I'm starving, but I didn't want to eat without you."_

Skwisgaar muttered something incoherent and pulled one of his pillows over his face. Instead of being discouraged, Toki merely laughed. He snatched the pillow away and smacked Skwisgaar in the face with it.

"_Fuck you," _the Swede groaned, blinking and squinting at the savagely bright light that poured in through the window across the room. _ "Go eat candy for lunch or something and let me sleep!" _

"_You're a lazy bum, Skwis," _Toki declared. He pulled back for another wallop with the pillow.

Skwisgaar caught it in one large hand as it descended and wrenched it out of Toki's grip. He looked up, intent upon hitting Toki back, but the hinges of his jaw loosened and for a moment he forgot how to move.

Toki had perched himself on Skwisgaar's bony knees, his long hair still tousled and tangled from sleep; he even had kinks in his mustache. He was naked from the waist up, and had apparently put back on all the muscle he had lost during and after the disastrous visit from the band's parents. The cut of his hipbones was clear and hard, jutting down into the low waistband of his pajama pants, and even in such a slouched, relaxed position, Skwisgaar was astonished to see that the lines of Toki's abs were clearly defined.

_All those times I kicked his ass, _Skwisgaar mused, taking in the long, hard muscles of Toki's arms, _He could have ripped me limb from limb. Easily. Holy shit._

Toki cocked his head to one side. He was still smiling, but his smile had become uneasy; he was unused to such intense scrutiny. _ "Uh…Skwisgaar? What's wrong? You're staring at my tummy."_

Skwisgaar's concentration snapped. He had never heard a grown man say the word 'tummy,' and he burst into a fit of laughter.

"_Uh oh," _Toki's smile disappeared. _ "Something's wrong, isn't it? Skwis, what's the matter? Why are you laughing at me like that?"_

Skwisgaar could only laugh harder, but he sat up in bed and motioned for Toki to come sit beside him. Toki did so, crawling across the covers like a child.

"_Still don't know why you're laughing," _he mumbled, his tone teetering on the edge of a pout. He crossed his powerful arms over his chest and looked away.

As Skwisgaar's giggles tapered off, he looked more closely at Toki's arms. There was no doubt that the younger man could have beaten the tar out of him any time he chose. Toki's biceps were huge, too big for even Skwisgaar's long fingers to close around completely, and the veins along his forearms stood out like cords.

"_Toki," _ he said, suddenly curious. _ "Can I ask you something?"_

"_Yeah, as long as you stop laughing at me and tell me what's so damn funny," _Toki answered, a little sullen.

"_Sorry, you just said 'tummy' and it kind of cracked me up," _Skwisgaar answered. He snickered again; Toki looked mollified. _ "But what I wanted to ask you was…well, why the hell did you never beat me up like I used to beat you up? Especially after we got older? I mean yeah you hit back and you hit back hard…but Jesus, Toki, you could have made me stop for good if you'd ever tried." _

Toki shrugged. He made no reply. Instead, he asked, _ "Can we get food now?"_

Skwisgaar rolled his eyes and nodded.

As Toki waited for Skwisgaar to throw on something over his boxers, he rubbed one of the thick scars that crept over his shoulder and shuddered. His mother and father both had beaten him to blood or bruises every day of his life. He could still recall the terror of being smaller and weaker, of being defenseless; he never wanted to make anyone else feel like that if he could help it. _I'd never do that to someone I cared about, _he thought to himself, although he knew somewhere deep in his mind that part of him—a sick part, a part that had never and would never heal—was capable of doing just that and worse.

He was pulled out of his gloomy reverie by Skwisgaar's mouth against his own, warm and open and comforting. Almost instinctively, he rose to his tiptoes and wrapped his arms around Skwisgaar's thin shoulders for balance.

"_Good morning, by the way," _Skwisgaar mumbled against his mouth. The Swede was smiling when he pulled away.

"…_it's….it's afternoon, but whatever." _Toki answered. He knew the grin on his face was wide and stupid and he didn't care.

"_Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's get food, since you want it so bad."_

Much to Toki's delight, Jean-Pierre had prepared an authentic Scandinavian meal for the two guitarists.

"Seence you are ze only two in ze 'aus," the deformed man muttered in his slurred voice, as several aproned Klokateers swarmed past him bearing a dish of some kind. "I feegured, what ze 'ell. Enjoy, monsieurs!"

He bowed out of the dining room, Klokateers in tow, leaving Skwisgaar and Toki staring at the laden table.

"_We'll never be able to eat all this ourselves," _Skwisgaar said. His stomach rolled and he added to himself, _I'll never be able to eat _any_ of it._

"_Speak for yourself," _said Toki, who was grinning widely as he filled his bowl with _farikal _and piled his plate with _kumla _and _rulle polse. "I'm going to eat until I can't fit anything else in my mouth!"_

Skwisgaar didn't think he'd ever seen Toki eat with such enthusiasm, not even in the days after they first made it to America, when they finally managed to afford McDonald's after two days of eating nothing but Saltine crackers. He downed double helpings of all the dishes he knew, then began asking Skwisgaar what the more unfamiliar ones were made of, assuming them to be Swedish rather than Norwegian. Skwisgaar answered him, but he wasn't sure it mattered; most of the time Toki was already devouring whatever it was they were talking about, from the _Dromskinka _to half the entire dish of meatballs.

"_Slow down, Toki, you're going to get sick or something," _Skwisgaar told him. The Swede was currently pushing a meatball around in the bit of _kumla _Toki had talked him into trying. He'd eaten a piece of the ham—it was delicious, it really was—and was trying to eat more, but his stomach seemed to revolt at the very idea.

"_Nah, I won't," _said Toki, with childish confidence. _ "But you've hardly eaten anything, Skwisgaar, and I know you're hungry, your stomach was growling loud enough for me to hear it." _

Skwisgaar waved a hand and forced himself to swallow a bite of meatball. _ "You know me, I get full fast."_

It was another lie, but Skwisgaar didn't quite realize it; he'd been telling people that for so long that he had come to believe it himself.

Toki looked at him carefully for a moment or two, as if trying to see past his words, and Skwisgaar felt his throat and mouth growing thick with the rotten foulness that always seemed to creep in when he tried to eat around other people. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to act normal, but Toki didn't look away, and had actually opened his mouth to speak when Jean-Pierre and his kitchen Klokateers entered the dining room with a bow.

"Eet is time for ze dessert, no?" said Jean-Pierre with a hideous but oddly endearing grin. "I will save ze leftovers for you, monsieurs, but for now we take away ze main dishes."

The empty-handed hoods swept across the table like a shadow, taking the decimated dishes with them as they went and making room for the rest of the servants to lay out the desserts.

It seemed to Skwisgaar that there were more desserts than there had been main courses, but with Toki in the picture that wasn't surprising. The sight of so many sugary confections thoroughly distracted the younger man from Skwisgaar, and the Swede handed his plate—still three-quarters full—off to the nearest Gear before Toki regained his train of thought.

In truth, he had no idea how Toki expected to eat dessert on top of all the food he'd just eaten, but he did. Skwisgaar watched in awe as the younger man wolfed down sweet _lefse, _at least four big _kringla, _two of the huge _skolebrod _and several small butter cookies. He tried the _rosemunnar _that Jean-Pierre had placed near Skwisgaar's side of the table, but didn't like the filling; the _pepparkakor _were a different story, and he ate at least six. The only dessert Skwisgaar could bring himself to so much as touch was the almond cake—he'd loved it as a child—and while he could barely finish the one small slice he'd cut himself, Toki finished off his epic meal by downing an astonishing four pieces.

"_You're like a freaking garbage disposal, Toki," _Skwisgaar said in awe as the two of them left the dining room, having given Jean-Pierre some well-deserved but seldom heard praise. _ "How are you even moving?"_

Toki just laughed; all the food, the _familiar _food, had put him in a very good mood.

"_I've always eaten a lot, ever since I was finally able to _get _a lot," _he answered, as they left the hallway and entered the foyer. _ "Besides, I'll work it all off in the gym later anyway."_

"_We have a gym?" _Skwisgaar said, honestly surprised. _ "I never knew that."_

"_You did, you just forgot. It's down near the dungeons, the Klokateers use it mostly."_

"_How long have you been using it?" _asked Skwisgaar, trying to remember if he'd ever heard Toki mention working out to any of them.

Toki shrugged. _ "Since we moved into Mordhaus; what, did you think this was still muscle I'd put on from lugging all your shit around when I was a roadie?" _

Skwisgaar grinned at him and bumped his shoulder. _ "Come on, it wasn't that heavy."_

"_Yeah, your guitar wasn't, then you joined up with everybody else and I had to start carrying amps and drum sets and shit," _Toki smiled back at him.

"_It builds character," _Skwisgaar remarked loftily. _ "Now, what are we supposed to do for—" _he looked up at the great wrought-iron clock on the far wall of the foyer. _ "For another four hours until the reporters show up? We usually have practice right now, but." _He shrugged.

"_Er…well, would you mind helping me learn the tabs for the new song Nathan wrote?" _Toki's cheeks colored as he spoke; he was used to any requests for help from Skwisgaar being met with mockery.

"_You mean the only song we have on the new album?" _Skwisgaar said.

"_Yeah, that one. Do you…do you mind?"_

"_Of course not," _Skwisgaar said, and the smile on Toki's face made him forget, for a moment, that the food in his stomach was beginning to feel more like poison.

xXx

"_No, Toki, no, stop for a second," _said Skwisgaar. He shook his head and sighed heavily, standing up from his seat on the edge of Toki's small bed. _ "You're doing it wrong again. Hold it higher…" _he stood behind Toki, putting his delicate hands over the Norwegian's stronger ones, and gently nudged Toki's fingers to a place on the neck of the guitar that was maybe half an inch below where they kept hitting.

"Fucks me," Toki growled to himself in English, as Skwisgaar moved away. He clutched his hair for a moment in frustration, snatching sharply at his temples; he missed the strange look that came over Skwisgaar's face as the Swede lost himself in a small fantasy.

"_So…if I do _that…_it sounds like _this…"

Skwisgaar blinked, startled out of his thoughts as Toki began to play. The part he was having trouble with was short, but very complicated; he played through the troublesome part once, perfectly.

"_Much better," _Skwisgaar told him, nodding his approval. _ "Now, try the whole thing, and remember where I told you to put your fingers when you come to the hard part."_

Toki took a deep breath and started again. His fingers flew across the strings, thicker and slower than Skwisgaar's, but more talented than any other player in the world save the Swede. His tongue was tucked tightly in the corner of his mouth, a sure sign that he was concentrating as hard as he could, but a minute or two into the song the notes began to grow cacophonous instead of melodious as Toki neared the most difficult part.

"Fuck," Toki snarled again, giving up and smacking the strings with the flat of his hand. He seemed to prefer cursing in English.

"_Keep trying, Toki. You're just letting your mind get ahead of your hands," _Skwisgaar admonished. _ "Stop thinking about what you have to make your hands do next…you've got to live in the music, you know?"_

"_If I don't think about what I have to do next I'm afraid I'll forget and just fuck it up altogether once we're on stage," _Toki said, flexing his hands for a moment before repositioning them on his instrument.

"_I wouldn't worry about being on stage with this song just yet," _said Skwisgaar with a snort. He sprawled his long body over Toki's bed. _ "We'll never get the album out at this rate. Now start again."_

Toki stuck his tongue out at his coach, but he obeyed. He tried to do what Skwisgaar said; he tried to live in the sound he was making, tried to feel it the way Skwisgaar always seemed to feel it when he was playing, but the sight of the Swede lying on his bed, watching him so intently, made Toki nervous.

_I'll never be as good as he is, _he thought, his fingers already stumbling. _Not even if I practiced 24/7 for the next ten years. No one can even come close to him. _

"_Toki, stop, you're doing it again," _Skwisgaar was saying, and Toki stopped, still looking at Skwisgaar with the envy and admiration he'd felt for most of his life.

"_I'm sorry, Skwisgaar," _he sighed, as the Swede once again stood behind him to correct his hands. _ "I should just give up, I'll never be anywhere near as good as you are."_

He shrugged out of the strap and simply held his guitar in one hand, staring at sadly. He leaned it against his headboard and sat down on his bed, flexing his abused fingers. They had been at it for hours now—Skwisgaar demonstrating, Toki attemping to copy and often failing—and Toki's calloused fingers were red and cramped. When he looked up at Skwisgaar, he saw that the Swede was still frozen in place, his mouth open as if he wanted to speak but wasn't sure what to say.

"_See?" _Toki mumbled, _ "You're right, you know, you should just be the only damn guitarist."_

Skwisgaar cringed a little, wondering how many times he had told Toki that exact thing over the years, wondering if he had somehow helped create Toki's problem with overthinking himself. He sat down beside the smaller man and took his hands, rubbing them between his own to soothe some of the soreness.

"_I was an asshole to ever say anything like that," _Skwisgaar said. _ "It's not true, and I don't ever want to hear _you _say it again, understand me?"_

Toki wasn't looking at him; Skwisgaar pressed his forehead to Toki's and made sure their eyes met. _ "Understand me?" _he said again, and Toki nodded.

"_Good," _said Skwisgaar. He smiled; his hands became a little more gentle on Toki's. _ "Now…what can I do to help you feel better?"_

"_Let me borrow your hands," _Toki said sadly.

"_Hm…" _Skwisgaar began to grin, a little wolfishly. _ "Don't think I can do that, sorry…but maybe I can make you feel better anyway."_

He turned his head slightly and began to trail tiny kisses from Toki's jawbone down to his throat; he could feel the younger man's body tense and tremble at his touch, and when he felt Toki's hands—cramped and useless fifteen seconds earlier—bury themselves into his hair, Skwisgaar turned his head again and covered Toki's mouth with his own.

Skwisgaar slid his hands up Toki's shirt, his skin thrilling at the feel of hard muscle and hot skin. He pushed him back slowly. He maneuvered Toki beneath him until he was straddling Norwegian's thighs. Toki's narrow bed creaked slightly as Skwisgaar, in one fluid motion, tugged Toki's shirt over his head and began tracing the lines of his abs with his tongue.

"_Skwis—!" _Toki found himself biting his lower lip to quiet himself as he squirmed beneath Skwisgaar's touch. His skin was running hot and cold all at once and his cock was rock-hard, insisting to be let out of the imprisonment of his jeans, and when Skwisgaar covered the throbbing bulge with one long-fingered hand Toki stopped trying to be quiet and moaned out loud.

"_That's more like it," _Skwisgaar said, and his voice was low, purring. _ "I like knowing I can make you do that."_

Toki, with hands that shook only a little, reached out and snatched Skwisgaar's shirt over his head. He grabbed the Swede to him with a strength Skwisgaar couldn't even begin to resist; he kissed him so fiercely that Skwisgaar, for a moment, was completely at sea. Then it was _his _turn to moan, to feel the ragged desire that he had made Toki feel, as the younger man's hips began to grind against his own.

They were so lost in one another, so intent upon their own heat and need. It wasn't until Skwisgaar's belt buckle, which Toki had removed and tossed to the side, knocked Skwisgaar's dethphone off the nightstand that either of them noticed that it had been buzzing loudly for the past ten minutes. The caller ID was displaying Charles Ofdensen's picture.

"Shit," Toki said in English, then began giggling. He still couldn't stop after Skwisgaar—jeans riding low on his bony hips, pale skin still flushed—picked up the phone and began trying to placate a slightly irate Charles.

"I don't know what you and Toki are doing and I don't WANT to know," Charles snapped, and Toki lost it—he began laughing in earnest. "But please get downstairs, your interview was supposed to start twenty minutes ago."


	6. Chapter 6

The black alarm clock shattered against the wall, and Skwisgaar rolled out of bed with a groan. It was six fifteen in the morning—he had seen that much before he chucked the clock across the room—and in Skwisgaar's not-so-humble opinion, six fifteen AM was much too earlier in the morning for any world-famous guitarist to be waking up.

He kicked the shattered pieces of clock out of his way with bare feet as he made his way toward the bathroom. He felt dizzy, cold, and a little sick…but he felt that way every morning. He stripped off his boxers and slipped into the shower stall as quickly as possible, letting the hot water chase away the goosebumps.

He didn't take as long as he usually did to enjoy his shower, as he was (unfortunately) on his manager's timetable this morning. He had just stepped out of the shower stall and was twisting the water out of his hair when he looked up and saw Toki baring his slightly crowded teeth in the mirror over the double sink.

"_Well, good morning," _Skwisgaar said, and Toki whirled around.

The Swede couldn't help but grin in a rather self-satisfied sort of way as Toki's big blue eyes caught his, then drifted downward…then shot up toward the ceiling as a dark blush suffused his cheeks.

"_Uh…good morning, Skwisgaar," _he said absently, _"Sorry, I wasn't meaning to…uh…"_

"_Oh, shut up, Toki," _Skwisgaar laughed, as he moved toward the sink next to Toki. _"It's not like it's anything you've never seen before."_

"_Yeah," _Toki said. He was still looking anywhere but at Skwisgaar. _"Uh, can I use your shower?"_

Skwisgaar waved his hand in consent; he had already filled his mouth with lemon-flavored toothpaste foam.

Toki was so discomfited that he went into the shower stall with his pajama pants on…or maybe he did it on purpose, Skwisgaar wasn't sure. A moment later they arced over the top of the shower stall door, and Skwisgaar took them.

He also took the rest of the towels.

As he got dressed, his mind drifted to the previous night and how he and Toki had been very rudely interrupted by Charles' phone call. He had planned to continue once he got Toki back in bed, but after the interviews (which lasted an absurdly long time, since both reporters were women and kept trying to convince the two guitarists to take them out for drinks) Toki had no more than laid down on Skwisgaar's soft covers before he was out cold.

It had taken Skwisgaar longer to fall asleep. He had laid awake at Toki's side for hours, worried that if he _did _fall asleep, he would do something strange. He was prone to talking in his sleep, he knew, but what he most feared was a repeat of the nightmares that never failed to make him scream, the ones he had suffered when Toki had first come to him the other night.

His stomach did a backflip and Skwisgaar changed his train of thought immediately.

"_Skwisgaar, you assbasket, you stole my pants!"_

Skwisgaar turned to see Toki peeking around the door to the bathroom, looking slightly furious.

"_AND you stole the towels!"_

The blond started laughing. He couldn't help it.

"_I'll let you have one if you come get it," _he said, plucking a particularly fluffy black one out of his closet.

Toki glared at him; for a moment, he didn't move.

"_Fines," _he said at length, the beginning of a smirk playing at his lips. _"You want me naked, you get me naked."_

He stepped out from behind the door, stretching his arms over his head and affecting a yawn; he could feel the muscles of his stomach tightening as he moved, knew the veins of his arms were standing out clearly in his darker skin, and when he risked a glance at Skwisgaar he knew he had won. He took the towel out of the speechless Swede's hands with a triumphant little laugh.

"_That," _Skwisgaar said, still staring hungrily at Toki's wet skin, _"Is not fair."_

"_Since when do you play fair?" _Toki asked, and stuck out his tongue. _"I'm going to go get dr—shit! I never packed last night!"_

"_Don't worry about it," _Skwisgaar said. _"After you fell asleep I went to your room and packed for you, lazy ass."_

As he spoke, he was moving two large suitcases into the hall. He had barely turned his back before two Klokateers disappeared with them.

"_Here, I brought you these, too."_

He tossed a little bundle of clothes at Toki as he began to rake a brush through his long, still-damp hair.

"_Thanks," _Toki said. Then a moment later…

"_Skwisgaar," _Toki said, in a voice that made it evident he knew the Swede had made no mistake, _"This shirt is about two sizes too little for me."_

Skwisgaar only grinned at him, taking in the delicious sight of his lover's hard body in a tight-fitting and slightly ragged Rammstein t-shirt. _"Too late to change now, we'll be late. Still have to eat breakfast, don't we?"_

Toki followed Skwisgaar to the stairs, mumbling to himself and tugging at the tight fabric, but he looked pleased nonetheless.

"Eez quick breakfast for you today, monsieurs," Jean-Pierre said, regretfully laying out a dish of leftover Scandinavian sweets. "Monseiur Ofdensen's orders."

"Nots a problems,"said Toki cheerfully, snatching up a _skolebrod _and eating half of it in one bite.

Skwisgaar picked up a _rosemunnar _and nibbled it, watching Toki eat.

Another _skolebrod, _a plate of cold _lefse, _two _kringla, _six _pepparkakor_ and two huge glasses of apple juice later, Toki was finished, and he had no time to say anything about Skwisgaar's one half-eaten cookie—a group of Klokateers appeared and began to usher them to the roof, where a private jet waited.

When they arrived, Charles actually favored them with a smile. For once in their lives, at least two of his boys were on time.

As the plane took off, the phone in Charles' office began to ring. His answering machine picked up, and it would have given the caller his cell phone number, had the caller not hung up before the message could complete itself.

xXx

"Would you two _please _try to keep it down?" Charles asked loudly, his hands clapped over his ears. The travel-desk in front of his seat was covered in loose papers, and there was a pen tucked behind one ear.

"Ecks-kyooz us fors havingks fun whens da Robots gots to be workingks," Skwisgaar taunted, as he spun the Guitar Hero controller behind his back and moved seamlessly back into the notes of Heart's "Crazy on You."

"Why don'ts you comes play too?" asked Toki. He never took his eyes off Skwisgaar; the Swede had turned his back on the TV and was currently playing the last few notes with the controller above his head.

"Really, I'd, ah…rather not," Charles replied. He was massaging his temples. "What I would like to do is ah, finish this paperwork."

"Eh, fucks de paperswork," Skwisgaar said. He pulled the strap of the controller over his head and handed it to Toki.

Charles merely sighed. He pulled out his pen, intent upon signing a few more documents, but a moment later he found himself cringing and slashing an ugly blue mark across the paper; "Rock this Town" by Stray Cats was blaring out of the Bose speakers.

"I give up," he grumbled. He shoved his papers back into his briefcase.

"Don'ts be beingks such a dildoes, eh?" said Skwisgaar. "Wants to plays Rocks Band wit' us? Yous cans be singingks ifs you wants."

"No, Skwisgaar, I do not want to ah…I don't want to sing in Rock Band," said Charles, who was a little taken aback that the boys would even offer to let him play with them anyway. "I _need _to be doing my paperwork, but ah…I'm not used to having so many ah…distractions."

"Pfft, suits yourselfs," Toki shrugged. He switched from Stray Cats to Rage Against the Machine.

"Since I can't work," Charles said, "Will you two ah…give it a rest for a few? We're only about…" Charles consulted his watch. "We're only about thirty minutes away from the festival, and I need to go over protocol with the two of you before I turn you loose."

Charles shuddered a little as he spoke, as if the thought of Toki and Skwisgaar loose at a death metal festival horrified him. In fact, it did.

"Justs lets me finish," Toki mumbled. His tongue was tucked between his lips in concentration. A moment later, the screen proclaimed that Toki rocked, a statement that was punctuated by a joyful "Fucks yeah!" from the ecstatic Norwegian.

"So whats you means by pro…protoks…" Skiwsgaar sat down on the plush little sofa adjacent to Charles' seat. "So whats wants to be tellingks us?"

"_Ja," _said Toki, as he clicked 'pause' and shrugged out of the controller. "Actually…whats protocols even means?"

"Nothing," Charles said, fighting the urge to smack himself in the forehead. "Nothing important. Just listen to me, okay?" He was beginning to feel like tearing his hair out by the roots. Pickles wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he could carry on a conversation…

Thinking about Pickles made Ofdensen feel slightly emotional, so he quickly changed his train of theought to all the terrible things that could happen at Hole in the Sky if he didn't tell Skwisgaar and Toki precisely how to behave. Images of dismembered fangirls and atomic explosions filled his head, and he sighed happily. That was more like it.

"I need to tell you what to do when you reach the festival," Charles said. "Now, are you going to listen to me?"

"We's listeningks, we's listeningks, just hurries it up," Skwisgaar said. His arm was slung around Toki, but he was playing an imaginary guitar on the younger man's shoulder. "I wants to be playingks "War Pigs" befores we gets dere."

"Whatever," Charles mumbled, then asked, "Do you two remember the cover story for Pickles?"

"He's sicks, wit' da…da…" Skwisgaar's features contorted slightly as he tried to remember how to pronounce the word Charles had given them two days ago.

"Pickle gots pneumonias," Toki said at last, after it had become apparent that Skwisgaar wasn't going to get it.

"Noo-moany-uhs," the blond repeated, and Charles decided that was good enough.

"Exactly," he said, wondering how there had ever been a time when Skwisgaar had spoken better English than Toki. "Pickles is sick with pneumonia and is being kept at the infirmary at Mordhaus. He is doing well, and he will recover soon. That is _all _you are to say, that is all you are _going _to say, and if any word of his exact location is leaked, I will hurt you. Both of you. Do you understand?"

With echoes of _That's my bread and butter you're fucking with _dancing in their heads, Toki and Skwisgaar both nodded fervently.

"Good. Now, on the first day—today—the four of you will be doing the usual interviews and question-and-answer sessions. I don't care how much you hate it, it's happening," Charles added, as the two guitarists began to scowl. "The second day you will have to yourselves, but that night, the night before we leave, there will be a party. Members of a few other bands will be attending, as well as a selection of fans, who will be chosen today and tomorrow. Select merchandise at the Dethklok booths contain hidden tickets."

"I hates de fans," Skwisgaar said darkly. He spit into the red rug and rubbed it in with the toe of his boot. "_Hates _dem."

"Me too," Toki mumbled. He was remembering the day he'd spent with his face stuck to the wall while his 'fans' watched him like an animal at the zoo.

"I know, but since they pay your bills and your salaries, it is in your best interest to be polite to them," Charles said, trying not to smile. "I promise you only have to stay as long as it takes for the guests to get thoroughly intoxicated."

He paused for a moment, then added, "And please, whatever you do, don't maim them."

"We'll tries," Toki said with a shrug. "But that stuffs just kinds of seems to happen."

"I's makes no promises," said Skwisgaar.

"Good enough," Charles said. "It's better than nothing, anyway." He glanced down at his watch and saw that he had just enough time to finish signing the rest of his documents.

"I'm going up to the cockpit to finish my paperwork," he said. "I'll be back when the plan lands. For God's sake, don't get off without me." He picked up his briefcase and made his way toward the front of the plane, giving them a small wave before shutting the door to the control room behind him.

"He's be actingks likes we's all dildoes childrens," Skwisgaar grumbled, as he stood up and took the guitar controller in hand. He began to scroll through the songs until he found "War Pigs" and began to play almost absentmindedly.

"_I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen if we're left on our own for five minutes?" _he asked, switching over to Swedish without thinking. His long pinky finger darted out and tapped the orange button easily, as if that particular button wasn't the most difficult one for the rest of humanity to reach.

Toki said nothing. He was staring out of the plane window, as if he hadn't heard a word that Skwisgaar had said. In the past, this would have elicted several biting comments from the Swede, but instead he clicked the 'pause' button on the controller and sat down beside Toki on the soft couch.

"_Hey," _he said quietly, shrugging out of the strap and putting the controller off to one side. _"Are you all right? You got quiet."_

Toki smiled at him a little, but still didn't speak.

"_What are you worried about?" _Skwisgaar continued. _"And what can I do to cheer you up? You're kinda depressing me, and you know the last time we all got depressed there were an awful lot of tornadoes…I'm pretty sure the Robot would be pissed about a tornado right now."_

This time, Toki laughed, and Skwisgaar grinned brightly. He put his arm around Toki and dragged him closer.

"_It's really nothing important," _Toki said, as he laid his head on Skwisgaar's bony shoulder. _"I was just remembering the last party we had that was open to fans."_

Skwisgaar's high forehead wrinkled as he struggled to remember that particular occasion. He vaguely recalled dancing like a lunatic in the midst of about a dozen women, but he was having a hard time remembering if he had done so during the party or later when the dozen women came back to his bedroom with him.

It was kind of funny, now that he thought of it, that the idea of women pretty much did nothing for him now. _Not that it ever did much on its own, _he thought—he could pretty much say "up" and his body would obey. But the thought of actually having sex with a woman now that he had Toki was akin to drinking Bud Light beer when you had your very own private stash of Skyy vodka; it was absurd.

Skwisgaar said, _"Eh…I'm not sure I remember exactly what happened at that one. Do I want to know?"_

"_I was the only one that wasn't shitfaced drunk," _Toki said, and after a moment, he began to giggle slightly. _"This was the one where Murderface cut off Nathan's fingertip with one of his new knives, and Nathan was too drunk to notice."_

"_Oh yeah," _Skwisgaar nodded. _"I remember that."_

"_Anyway," _Toki continued, _"Like I said, it's not really important…but I was just remembering all those girls you had in your room the next morning. They were all pretty hot. Most of them, anyway, I think there were a couple grannies thrown in," _he added, and Skwisgaar knew the joke was an attempt to hide how much the memory was really bugging him.

"_But…" _Toki bit his lip for a moment, then seemed to shake off his nerves. _"But I guess those girls don't matter now. No matter how hot they were. Right?"_

Toki looked up at him then, and it hurt Skwisgaar just a little that he could still see the barest traces of skepticism in Toki's eyes. The younger man still didn't completely trust him; he might believe he did, but his eyes were telling an entirely different story.

_I've really been an idiot, _Skwisgaar thought angrily. He nudged Toki's forehead with his own until the Norwegian would look him in the eyes, wanting to be sure that Toki could see his sincerity.

"_They don't matter at all now, Toki," _he said gently. _"Hell, they didn't really matter even then. Okay? You're the only one that matters. You're…"_

He paused, surprised at the words that had just threatened to spill from his lips. After a moment, he decided to speak them anyway.

"_You're the only one that's ever mattered," _he said, and with his heart hammering in his chest, he kissed Toki as gently as he could.

When they broke apart, Toki's smile was genuine. He twined Skwisgaar's fingers with his just as the captain gave the order to fasten their seatbelts.

xXx

"Holies…shits," Skwisgaar said slowly. He was standing with Toki and Charles at the top of the jet stairs. "Dis is a shitsload of peoples."

The field that the Dethjet had used as a landing area was just across from the field where the festival was being held. The ground was crawling with people like a swarm of insects. They all crowded around the huge platform stages, screaming and dancing, throwing things or crowd surfing.

"This is the biggest death metal festival in the United States," Charles said, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and surveying the monstrous crowd with a displeases expression. "Now for God's sake, smile for the cameras."

Skwisgaar did no such thing; he merely scowled, hating the claustrophobic feeling of too many people, hating even more the rancid smell of sweat and pot and beer and body odor that drifted toward them from the throng. Toki, on the other hand, obediently turned his mouth up in a cheerful grin. The two of them made their way down the red carpet behind Charles and two armed Klokateers—another pair flanked them, another pair brought up the rear—and turned their faces toward photographers that called their names. Charles knew the six guards were probably overkill, but he preferred to be more safe than sorry.

It wasn't long before reporters were hailing the two guitarists for brief interviews; Charles nodded his consent, and Toki paused in front of a pretty, slim young woman carrying a tape recorder.

"Mr. Wartooth," the woman began, a little breathlessly, "Mr. Wartooth, why has Mr. Pickles elected not to join the rest of the band here at Hole in the Sky?" She held the tape recorder out to him, awaiting his reply.

Charles held his breath.

"Pickle is sick," Toki answered, and Charles breathed again. "He's gots…er, what's you Americans calls it? New…new…"

Charles knew perfectly well that Toki could say the word; he found this bit of staged forgetfulness brilliant, as it distracted the reporter from her main objective.

"Pneumonia?" the woman suggested gently, as if she were speaking to a child with a speech impediment he was working particularly hard to overcome. Toki went with the childish treatment easily.

"_Ja, ja,_ that's the ones!" he exclaimed. "Thanks you, pretty lady." Toki flashed her a smile and moved on down the carpet. It took everything Charles had in him at the moment not to laugh out loud; Toki knew how to manipulate the paparazzi, all right. Most of the time.

Skwisgaar, on the other hand, had an entirely different approach…at least with male reporters.

"Mr. Skwigelf, could I ask you a few questions, if you don't mind?" the man beckoning to Skwisgaar was short, fat, and wearing an extremely bad tie.

_Who told him those colors went together? _Charles wondered, staring at the hideous conflagration of purple, orange, and neon green that made up the tie's unfortunate pattern.

"_Ja, _knocks yourselfs out," said Skwisgaar. He paused in front of the man, then immediately looked away, as if bored to tears.

"Mr. Skwigelf, what do you say to the rumors that Pickles the Drummer has been put into rehab for his alcoholism and drug addictions?" the fat man looked smug as he held out the microphone for Skwisgaar's reply.

_Damn it, _Charles thought, _How could it have already leaked—_

One of Skwisgaar's pale eyebrows had shot up. He was looking down at the man as if he were something rather disgusting. "Dats a new ones to me. Pickle is sicks, wit' de…de noomoanyas."

"Any idea when we'll see Pickles back on the red carpet…if he is indeed sick?"

"Pfft. If alls he gots to be lookingks forwards to on de carptes is de fatass dildoes reportsers likes yous, he's nevers goingks to be comingks back," Skwisgaar replied disdainfully. He moved to follow Toki into the waiting limousine; Charles was pleased to see that the nosy reporter looked quite dumbstruck. He climbed into the shiny black vehicle with his two guitarists, pleased that the first phase of the festival had gone more or less according to plan.

The trip to the Hatredcopter—the band's most massive home-away-from-home—barely took ten minutes. It was located only about a mile from the few fields that contained the festival, and it had been enclosed by a highly lethal electrical fence. A patrol of Klokateers walked the perimeter constantly. Cheered by the sight of so many effective safety measures, Charles entered the Hatredcopter with the intention of allowing himself a little break.

Of course, he was the manager of Dethklok. He never got a break.

"Scho, Ofdenschen," Murderface came up to him the moment he entered the front room of the 'copter, twirling a knife in his thick fingers. "What'sch thisch I hear about a party open to the fansch tomorrow night?"

"We're having it," Charles said flatly. "For God's sake, Murderface, I should think you would look forward to these affairs a little more, most of the guests will be ah…will be women."

Murderface considered this for a moment; while he was thinking, Charles removed himself from the vicinity of that knife as quickly as he could.

"Charles saids we coulds be leavingks once everybodies else is shitsfaced," Skwisgaar remarked, flopping down on a nearby couch. He already had his guitar in his hands; a Gear had appeared with it as soon as he'd entered the 'copter.

"Ands besides," Toki said, taking his candy bowl from another Gear, "Yous guys always ends up getting laids or somethings. So its nots so bads."

"True," Nathan grunted. "That part's, uh…not so bad at all."

"Exactly," Charles sighed. "I'm going to my office. Try not to need me, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Murderface waved a hand at him—thankfully not the hand still brandishing the knife—and Charles left.

"So what have you guys been doing?" Nathan asked, and knocked back a shot glass filled to the brim with some dark liquid.

"Practicings," Skwisgaar said. "Ands givingks intersviews to dildoes ladies."

"We ates lots of goods food," Toki said, wiping chocolate off his mustache with his forearm.

"Toki, I keep telling you, pickled herring isch _not _good food," Murderface said. He dug the tip of his knife into the scarred wood of the bar and poured himself a shot.

"Oh, we didn'ts have that," Toki said. "I'll haves to asks for it nexts time. What's you guys been up to?"

Nathan swallowed another shot and shuddered. "Dealing with fuckin fans," he answered darkly.

"Schtupid fucking fansch…" Murderface snatched his knife out of the wood and used it to stir his drink.

"Maybe some of the chicks at this, uh…at this party will be hot or something," Nathan mused.

"If they're not I'll kill 'em," said Murderface. He took a long sip of his drink, a concotion that was four parts Jack Daniels and one part Coke.

"Yous can'ts just be killingks all de uglies people, Murderface," Skwisgaar said. "Den yous has to kills yourselfs."

Toki and Nathan began to snicker; Murderface only waved his knife and said, "Fuck you, Blondie, you're the one that'sch alwaysch schleepin' with saggy-titted bitschesch."

"He's, uh…he's right about that, Skwisgaar," Nathan laughed. "You have, like, the worst taste in women. Ever."

Skwisgaar had to dig his canine teeth into the meat of his inner lip to keep from laughing; he caught Toki's eye, and found the younger man was doing the same.

_I may have bad taste in women, _he thought, eyeing the subtle movements in the muscles of Toki's forearms, _But I have damn good taste in men._


	7. Interlude Mature Content

Toki stood alone in a dark corner of the main room, a bottle of Grey Goose clutched loosely in his left hand and tiny pinpricks of blood dripping from his right. He had a vague recollection of crushing a shot glass earlier—that would have been right when the vodka was getting hold of him—but by now, Toki was too drunk to notice the pain.

The only thing he was noticing tonight was Skwisgaar.

_I fucking hate fans, _Toki thought darkly, as he took a sip from the heavy, frosted bottle.

Most of the fans who swarmed the party were female, and many were actually quite pretty. Some of them could even have been called beautiful by Dethklok standards. Their faces were painted in sultry dark hues; their lips, tongues, noses and eyebrows were pierced; they were tight, midriff Dethklok tees that must have been youth-sized as small as they were. These girls flocked to them all, but as it had been since the band's first taste of fame so many years ago, the majority of them flocked to Skwisgaar.

Toki couldn't blame them, of course; there was something enticing about Skwisgaar, something that radiated sexual appeal despite his gaunt frame and persistent pallor. Part of it came from the Swede's infuriating arrogance, his insistence upon always looking down his nose at at those who would have his attention, and that was likely the main thing that drew the fangirls like flies to honey.

_Women love an asshole, _Nathan had said of Skwisgaar years ago, and it was true. They loved him because he hated them, they loved him because getting his acknowledgement and attention was a feat to be proud of, they loved him because when he allowed them to come to his bed they felt as if they had been validated. Toki had once loved him like that, too, except his adoration had bordered more along the lines of hero-worship.

But Toki had learned, like so many young people do, that heroes did not exist. He had learned Skwisgaar's flaws, had seen them showcased many times over the years, and though he still sought the Swede's approval in the area of guitars and music he no longer treated him with the reverence due a god. Skwisgaar was divine only when it came to his instrument; otherwise, he was painfully human, with human skeletons dancing inside his closet.

Toki loved him for his humanity, loved him for those skeletons, loved him in spite of his flaws and demons, or perhaps because of them.

And there the Swede stood, in the midst of his harem, and Toki was powerfully, drunkenly jealous. He poured vodka down his throat to quench the small, smouldering flames of his fury, but the liquor only fueled the fire.

_If we could only tell Nathan and Murderface, we wouldn't fucking have this problem, _he thought, irritated, as he glanced in their direction. Murderface was cheerfully allowing two relatively attractive young women to toss shots of bourbon into his mouth, but every time he looked up he looked enviously in Skwisgaar's direction. Nathan would do the same, although he was a little more distracted than Murderface—a woman with long blonde hair was perched in his lap, wearing a very wet 'Explode Me' t-shirt. Both the bassist and the vocalist seemed to be a little thrown off that Skwisgaar wasn't flirting with any of the women that vied for his attention, despite the fact that the girls touched him and whispered to him at every available opportunity.

Toki himself had been avoiding the girls as much as possible, although it was apparently he could have a harem to rival Skwisgaar's surrounding him in a moment should he choose to move from his hiding place. He saw the ones in their Toki tees, saw them popping Jolly Ranchers like Pickles popped Xanax just because they knew it was his favorite candy. He saw them looking around in anxious expectation, he heard them asking the other band members where he was, but his dark corner was flanked by two large houseplants and the girls were mostly plastered. They would never find him.

_Unless I find them first, _Toki thought, and began to smile as he hit on a plan that would get Skwisgaar, who had a jealousy streak longer than his body was tall, to drag him out of the main area and up to one of their bedrooms no matter who was watching.

Fighting the urge to laugh out loud, he finished off the vodka and dropped the bottle into one of the houseplants. He looked down at his bloody hand and plucked out the biggest shards he could see. The rest would just have to stay in there; it wasn't as if it hurt that much, and besides, it would be entertaining to see what the more fanatic of the groupies would do just to touch his blood.

He stepped out of the corner. With a wave of pleasure, he noticed that Skwisgaar was the first person in the room to catch his eye. He waved to the Swede with his bleeding hand; concern flashed over Skwisgaar's face, but Toki's attention was soon commanded by the girls that had congregated around him.

He felt two or three of them running their fingers gently over his injured hand, coating their skin in his blood and cooing over his injuries. They kissed his bleeding fingers and Toki grinned; he could feel one of them boldly pushing her soft little hand up his shirt, tracing the outline of the eight-pack abs for which he had become famous.

"Oh, Toki, you are so _ripped," _one of them whispered, her lips close to his ear.

The warmth of her breath on his skin did little or nothing for him, but Toki smiled at her anyway. _"Takk," _he said, and could have died laughing as some of the girls began to squeal and clap. They apparently loved the way his voice sounded in his native language. He repeated word as another girl handed him a shot glass of some sweet liqueur.

He tossed it back and looked quickly at Skwisgaar. The Swede's pale face had colored deeply. He was no longer even pretending to pay attention to the circle of women around him. Toki saw him snatch a freshly opened beer from one of them and chug it at a record pace; he threw the bottle behind him when he finished, ignoring the cry of pain as it smashed one girl in the head. Skwisgaar crossed his thin arms over his chest and glared frankly in Toki's direction.

"Toki? Toki, you're bleeding…holy shit, you've got glass all stuck in your hand, too!"

Toki glanced down at the girl talking to him, simply because she didn't sound the same as the others around him. She had taken his hand in both of hers and was examining it carefully, but her thick, multicolored dreadlocks had fallen across her face and Toki couldn't quite see what she looked like.

"Shouldn't you go take care of this or something?" she asked, taking the end of her shirt and wiping away the little rivulets of blood on his wrists. "It might get infected or something, then you wouldn't be able to play for awhile."

She looked up at him as she spoke. Her skin wasn't much darker than his own, but it was prettier somehow, more natural; Toki hazarded a guess that she might have been of Middle Eastern descent. Her face was pierced in about nine different places with brightly glinting rhinestones, her dark eyes were outlined with long, thick lashes and brightly colored makeup; the low cut of her black corset revealed exceptional cleavage decorated in even more exceptional tattoos. In fact, Toki noticed, most of her exposed skin was tatooed, and he lost himself in them for a long drunken moment until the girl reached up and tapped him lightly on the cheek.

"Toki?" she said. "Man, you're pretty shitfaced, huh? Don't you know your hand is kind of a little mutilated?"

"Oh, is fine," he muttered, coming back to himself and smiling at her brightly. "I can'ts even feels it. What's yours name?"

"Sahar," the girl answered, returning his smile as if she thought Toki might be too drunk to know exactly what he was asking. "Sahar Emadi. Now who do I have to talk to to make sure you get this hand tended to? It would suck if you got tetanus or something and could never play again, you know."

"Yous be talkingks to me," sneered an unmistakeable voice from nearby. Toki and Sahar looked up to see Skwisgaar looming over them both. He looked furious. "Ecks-yooze mine friends, he is shitsfaceds."

Sahar looked at Skwisgaar for a moment, reluctant to release Toki's hand when the other guitarist looked so murderous…but slowly, a knowing smile spread across her pierced lips.

"You're right," she said, letting go of Toki's hand and allowing Skwisgaar to close his long fingers over his upper arm. "He is pretty drunk. You should get him upstairs…throw him in bed or something…he'll feel much better in the morning."

She winked at them both, then melted back into the crowd.

Skwisgaar didn't even see her go. He was dragging Toki away from his admirers, toward the staircase, entirely oblivious to the fact that Nathan and Murderface were both watching them in confusion.

As Skwisgaar pulled Toki roughly into the shadow of the staircase's first landing, he had a momentary break in his anger where he realized that even his long fingers would not close around Toki's bicep. It unnerved him a little, made him think twice before launching into the tirade that was on the tip of his tongue. Toki tended to dissolve into a sort of unpredictable madness when he was drunk, and could easily do serious damage to Skwisgaar without exactly meaning to. He released Toki's arm and took a step back, but Toki was stil grinning, and Skwisgaar was still furious.

"_I knew it would work," _Toki said, beginning to laugh. He leaned back against the wall with a gentle _thump, _his bloody hand leaving a smudged imprint against the paint.

"_What the hell are you talking about?" _Skwisgaar asked in a hiss. _"And what the hell were you doing down there, letting all those stupid fucking girls put their hands all over you?"_

"_I was trying to get you up here," _the Norwegian answered. His smile was mischievous. _"If I didn't, we'd never get away from that damn party, Nathan and Murderface would have noticed something weird."_

"_Well they're definitely going to be thinking something is weird now," _Skwisgaar grumbled. _"Why the hell did you want me up here in the first place?"_

"_Because that party is no fun and you know it," _Toki replied. _"We can have more fun up here. Alone."_

Skwisgaar watched, fascinated, as Toki's tongue swept over his lips. _"Yeah," _he said, as he leaned toward Toki, placing his hands against the wall on either side of the shorter man's head. _"Alone sounds pretty damn good to me."_

"_Without any of those stupid fucking fans falling all over you," _Toki mumbled. He tilted his head to one side as Skwisgaar sank his teeth gently into his throat.

"_Mmmhm," _Skwisgaar purred, as he moved one hand from the wall and slid it underneath Toki's t-shirt. _"You never let them touch you like that again, you hear me?" _he mumbled, mouth still pressed to Toki's skin.

Toki's breath hitched sharply; Skwisgaar had punctuated his order by pinching one of the younger man's nipples. Toki nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth, but Skwisgaar's body pinned his own against the wall and the Swede moved his lips slowly to Toki's ear.

"_Let me hear you promise," _he said, teeth closing around Toki's earlobe. _"Let me hear you say you're mine."_

"_I…I promise," _Toki mumbled, trying to speak through the thrill that raced from the nerves of his ear to the nerves of his groin. _"N-never, I promise. I'm…I-I'm y-yours, oh, God, Skwisgaar-!"_

The Swede's left hand had slipped from Toki's chest down into his jeans, stroking him through the knit fabric of his boxers; Toki felt his knees weaken, his toes curl tightly inside his boots, and couldn't suppress a moan.

Skwisgaar caught the incriminating sound with his mouth.

"_Sh-shouldn't we m-move?" _Toki breathed, when Skwisgaar pulled away a moment later.

Skwisgaar only smiled, sliding his hand through the fly of Toki's boxers. With one finger, he stroked the hypersensitive skin of Toki's balls, making the shorter man writhe against him.

"_Fuck them," _Skwisgaar said quietly. _"Let them catch us."_

He kissed Toki again, hot and hard, before he pressed his lips against Toki's ear once more and hissed, _"You won't make a sound. Do you understand?"_

Toki could only nod as Skwisgaar sankly slowly to his knees in front of him, pulling his jeans and boxers down as he went, but a moment later he was hard put to remain obedient. He bucked his hips forward, stifling a moan by digging his teeth into the heel of his hand as Skwisgaar's slick tongue swirled around the swollen head of his cock.

Skwisgaar was sucking him slowly, torturously, using one hand to hold Toki's hips to the wall, using the other to stroke his aching balls, and the raw _need _that was pooling low in Toki's stomach was impossible to endure.

Toki buried the fingers of his uninjured hand deeply into Skwisgaar's long hair, pulling his head backward until the Swede was forced to look up at him, lips swollen and shiny and smirking.

"_What's the matter?" _he asked, circling one hand loosely around Toki's thick cock. _"Can't handle it?"_

"_Bedroom," _Toki said in a fierce whisper. _"Now."_

Skwisgaar nodded, loving the sharp little pinpricks of pain along his scalp where Toki's fingers held him, loving the strength in Toki's arms as the younger man pulled him to his feet.

Toki pulled his jeans up, but didn't bother to fasten them. He led Skwisgaar down the hallway, leaving no evidence of their brief tryst except for the bloody, smeared print of his hand against the wall. The two guitarists came to Skwisgaar's bedroom first, and Skwisgaar had no more than slammed the door behind him than he found himself pinned against it by the hard weight of Toki's body.

The kiss was wet and desperate and delicious; Skwisgaar felt himself grinding shamelessly against the muscles of Toki's leg, felt the Norwegian's mouth slide from his lips to his throat, and Skwisgaar couldn't remember ever _wanting _so badly. He was toeing off his boots and fumbling with his own belt buckle even as his tongue was drawn into back Toki's mouth, and when they next broke apart it was only to shrug out of the last clothes either of them still wore: their shirts.

They paused then, for a moment; Skwisgaar had noticed the smears of Toki's blood standing out against his pale skin. A delicious shudder went through him, knowing he'd been marked in such an intimate way, and he looked hungrily back toward Toki.

_Dear God, _Skwisgaar thought, and another chill went up his spine, a chill that was only part lust. Toki's naked body radiated raw, physical power like a furnace. It was unnerving, almost, to see all those muscles, all that strength laid bare before him, but what truly made Skwisgaar pause were the scars.

He could see them, creeping up over Toki's massive shoulders, crossing like latticework over parts of his broad chest. There were a few curled around his calf muscles, yet more carved into the hard slabs of his thighs, and while to another person those scars might have spoken of a weak, powerless childhood, all Skwisgaar saw in them were the marks of a man who had survived.

"_Yeah," _Toki said quietly, when he realized what Skwisgaar was looking at so intently. _"They're…" _he paused for a moment, then swallowed heavily and continued, _"They're everywhere."_

He reached out with his injured hand for the light switch. Skwisgaar caught his wrist before he reached it.

"_They're beautiful," _he said, not lying, and kissed him.

For a moment, Toki was frozen beneath the gentle kiss, so startled and touched was he by Skwisgaar's words. The Swede had released his wrist; his arms were wrapped around Toki's waist now, and slowly, Toki melted into their warmth. He tangled one hand in Skwisgaar's long hair. It didn't take long for the intensity of their need to build again, and Toki found himself pinning Skwisgaar to the wall once more, tugging at his hair until his mouth opened and he could slip his tongue between the taller man's full lips.

It felt so good, so impossibly good to have Skwisgaar, the Ice King, the sex god, the fastest guitar player in the world shivering and moaning beneath his touch. It was an entirely different kind of drunk, this feeling, and Toki reveled in it, being sure to turn his every touch into something slow and sweet that would make Skwisgaar writhe or whimper beneath him. He began kissing his way down the blond's jawline, down his throat and collarbone; he paused to nibble the tiny nubs of Skwisgaar's nipples, then bit down once, just a little harder, until Skwisgaar gave a shocked cry of pain and pleasure. Toki continued his teasing journey downward, licking, nipping, sucking, until his lips reached the tip of Skwisgaar's flushed, throbbing cock.

He paused, his tongue flicking uncertainly over the soft, sensitive skin, as if to taste. He could hear Skwisgaar's rapid breath, could feel the beat of his racing pulse where he'd pinned the Swede's hips to the wall with his hands.

Toki looked up at him, and Skwisgaar could have gotten hard just looking into those eyes, those bright, devilish eyes that promised him the sweetest torture he'd ever know. He watched with a kind of pleasurable trepidation as the length of his cock disappeared into Toki's hot, wet mouth, and as the man below him began to move his head, to swirl his tongue in a thousand filthy patterns, Skwisgaar buried his hands in Toki's hair and moaned.

"_Fuuuuck…" _he tried to thrust his hips forward, tried to bury himself as deeply into the heat of Toki's mouth as he could, but the hands holding him down were unforgiving and Skwisgaar had no choice but to allow himself to be licked and sucked and tortured and teased until his moans gave way to a frantic mush of English and Swedish.

"_Oh, fuck, Toki, please…_I can'ts…fucks…_Toki oh god Toki _yous has to stops, _please stop Toki please I can't I can't I can't…"_

Toki gasped around the length in his mouth as he felt Skwisgaar's fingers curl into the hair at the nape of his neck; it hurt, but as Skwisgaar dragged him upward by his hair, looking down at him with blazing bright eyes, Toki's cock was hard enough to ache between his legs.

"_I'm not done with you," _the Swede whispered. His words sent a shudder through Toki's entire body, and Skwisgaar pushed him roughly down onto the nearby bed. The younger man couldn't help himself, couldn't control himself; he curled his hand around his swollen cock and began to stroke, eyes locked on Skwisgaar, who had turned his back toward him and was rummaging in a drawer of the nightstand.

When Skwisgaar turned back to him, a little bottle of lube in one hand, the grin that spread across his features was slow and roguish.

"_Someone is impatient," _he said as he knelt, straddlingToki on the bed. He bent low, his hair falling over both their faces, and he brushed his tongue along the shell of Toki's ear before whispering, _"You don't touch yourself unless I tell you, Toki, do you understand?"_

Skwisgaar's mere voice was unbearable, Toki thought, whining in frustration as Skwisgaar grabbed his wrist and made him move his hands behind his head. Just hearing the older man talk to him like that…being commanded in such a filthy, velvety tone…it was enough to make him him writhe beneath the Swede's scant weight, begging with his body for what he'd been denied giving himself.

The fingers of Skwisgaar's left hand were shiny now, slick with the cold, clear stuff from the bottle. He traced a slow, teasing circle around the head of Toki's cock with one of his slippery fingers, laughing when Toki sucked in his breath in surprise at the coldness of it, laughing even more when the gasp gave way to a moan as the stuff began to warm up and tingle against his skin.

"_You like this, don't you?" _Skwisgaar asked, stroking the underside of Toki's balls almost lazily. _"Don't you, Toki?"_

Toki opened his mouth to answer, but all that came out was a sudden breathless cry as one of Skwisgaar's long fingers began to probe gently against his entrance.

"_What?" _asked Skwisgaar in mock innocence, moving his fingertip in tiny, agonizing circles. _"I asked you a question, Toki, I think you should answer me."_

"_I…I…ah! Hn…ha…" _Skwisgaar was pushing against him now, opening him, the lube tingling against his most sensitive, most private skin, and Toki couldn't speak. He was so flushed and so embarrassed and so, so fucking hard, and when Skwisgaar's slick finger finally slipped ever so slightly inside of him he could only squirm and whimper, too self-conscious to even open his mouth.

"_You're blushing, little Toki," _said Skwisgaar, as he slowly slid his finger deep inside Toki's trembling body.

Another finger nudged against him, harder than the first, more insistent; the blond leaned over him with a small smile on his lips and took Toki's chin in his other hand, commanding the Norwegian's eyes with his own.

"_Now…tell me how much you like it when I touch you," _he commanded, his next finger pushing past Toki's tense muscles, _"Tell me you like how this feels, tell me you like having my fingers inside you..."_

The Swede began scissoring his fingers apart, moving slowly, stretching Toki open a little at a time, and though Toki arched into the motion, though he moaned and shook, his cheeks had flushed deeply and he tried to turn his head away, tried to close his eyes.

Skwisgaar made a _tsk_ing sound in his throat and turned Toki's face roughly back toward his own, holding it there so that he could not look away from him. He began thrusting his fingers in and out, slowly at first, then more quickly, being sure to spread them apart as he slipped them inside, and he laughed quietly when Toki began twisting and squirming in earnest.

"_Fuck you," _the smaller man moaned suddenly, speaking at last. Toki thrashed his head back and forth on the pillow for a moment, arching his back into Skwisgaar's fingers without shame. _"Fuck you, yes, goddammit, all right, I love it, please just don't fucking stop I'll do anything just please, please it feels so good…oh God, Skwisgaar, fuck, more, please…"_

"_Just as I thought," _Skwisgaar said, and his own voice had gone ragged and husky. He withdrew his fingers from Toki, wrapping his lube-slick hand around his own cock and stroking. When Toki sat up on one elbow, indignant and glaring and so rock-hard it was sinful, Skwisgaar gave up his teasing. He shoved Toki back down into the bed and crawled into position over him before the younger man could so much as open his mouth.

"_Are you ready?" _Skwisgaar asked, pressing the slick, swollen head of his cock into Toki with as much care as he was able. _"I don't want to hurt you but fuck, Toki, I want you so bad—"_

Toki made no reply. His blue eyes blazed from his face; Skwisgaar felt Toki's strong hands clamp down on his ass with bruising force, pushing him down, pushing him in, taking the Swede's length into his own clenching heat all at once.

They both cried out, Skwisgaar in surprise and pleasure, Toki in pleasure and pain, but once it had happened neither could control himself.

Toki wrapped his hand around his own cock, thumbing the slick head, forgetting what Skwisgaar had told him. He hooked his legs around the Swede's thin waist and lay back, rocking with the thrusts, his free hand fisted tightly into the bedsheets, his eyes locked on Skwisgaar's with an intensity that made him feel feverish, made him stroke himself harder, faster, until Skwisgaar suddenly noticed what he was doing.

The Swede said nothing, only snatched both Toki's wrists above his head and pinned them there with one of his own hands, thrusting harder and deeper when Toki began to buck beneath him , began begging and pleading with him. His cock was brushing against Skwisgaar's stomach with every roll of his hips and he was nearly sobbing in frustration.

"_Nnngg, Skwis…! Ah! Hn…ha, Skwisgaar, please, I…I n-need…I can't…f-fuck, Skwisgaar!"_

Toki fairly screamed his name, having rolled his hips upward as Skwisgaar drove into him; the Swede knew he'd found the right place, knew he'd found the way to drive Toki to the limit of his need, and when Toki's back arched again, he let his wrists go and held the younger man's hips, losing himself in the bulge of Toki's biceps, the clenching of his abs, the cries from his lips.

"_Fuck, Skwisgaar, oh God, Skwisgaar fuck please don't stop!" _ Toki was lost now, abandoning any remaining embarrassment, digging his fingers deep into the folds of the pillow behind him, throwing his head back and crying out in frenzied need. _"Skwisgaar please, fuck me harder…! Oh, God, fuck yes like that don't stopohmyfuckingGodSkwis-!"_

Toki clenched his strong legs tightly around the Swede's waist, moaning his name as if no one in the world would ever be able to hear; the wet warmth of his orgasm spilled onto both their stomachs just as Toki felt Skwisgaar's body grow tense above him.

"_Toki," _the Swede breathed, shuddering. Toki's mouth was captured in a savage kiss as Skwisgaar came, slicking him from inside.

Skwisgaar collapsed into Toki's arms a moment later. It was a long time before either of them moved, before they were able to do anything more than lie exhausted, holding one another close. As their breathing slowed, as the sweat cooled on their skin, Skwisgaar turned his head and kissed Toki near his temple. He rolled off him gently and stood up.

"_Mmm…come back," _Toki muttered, already struggling with himself to keep his eyes open. _"It's cold without you."_

Skwisgaar smiled down at him. _"Sorry. I'll be right back, promise."_

When the blond reappeared from the bathroom, still wiping himself off with a warm, wet washcloth, Toki was already fast asleep. Skwisgaar cleaned up him up as well, being careful not to wake him. He tossed the washcloth back into the bathroom and crawled into bed beside Toki, pulling the smaller man tightly against him and burying his face in the hollow of Toki's warm throat and shoulder.


	8. Chapter 7

There comes a time of night when it seems as if it has been night since the beginning of the universe, and will remain so until the end of all time. It's during this time of night that small children wake screaming for their mothers, in horror of the monsters that dwell under their beds; it's the time of night when veteran soldiers wake from dreams of war, clawing at the air against unseen enemies; it is the time of night when young people living alone for the first time wake to loneliness and wish desperately for the safety of their old homes. It's the time of nightmares and bad memories come to life. It's the time of night that a little part of everyone fears, no matter what sort of person you are…even if you're the fastest guitarist in the world.

Skwisgaar knew, in some deeply buried part of his mind, that he was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. A part of him knew that he was a grown man now, a grown man living in a mansion that was more like a fortress and surrounded by his own personal army. A part of him knew that he was thousands upon thousands of miles away from _her. _A part of him knew all these things, but during those endless, nightmarish hours, he never seemed able to remember them.

He dreamed his memories.

She is huge and towering and pale as she stands over his small body; her once-beautiful face is obscured by wisps of silver-blue cigarette smoke. She jabs him with the toe of her high-heeled shoe, pokes it sharply between his tiny ribs, and orders him to get up.

"_Stand up and be a little man, damn you," _she hisses, and her voice is cold. _"Don't you want to eat tonight?"_

He stands. He always stands. He is barely five years old and he stands because she is his mother and he loves her; he loves her now in the same desperate, deprived way that he will always love her, loves her despite the yellowish eyes of the old men in the shadows. She opens her arms to him and he goes into them willingly, a cold, naked little boy with haunted blue eyes and blond hair that hangs to his waist like a girl's. He goes to her even though he feels wrong, so horribly _wrong _as she picks him up and touches him and examines him and it happens almost every night but she is his mother and he knows that he is always supposed to obey his mother even if she makes him feel…_wrong._

She smells icky and it makes him feel sick to his tummy. He wants to be sick, wants to be sick all over the scratchy blue carpet of the hotel room, if he's sick she won't do this to him anymore, she won't touch him anymore, she won't give him to the old men who smell like her except worse, as if they wet their pants, he always gets in trouble when he wets his pants but those grown-up men don't and it doesn't feel right to him, none of this feels right, not his mother's hands not the twisted, sticky fingers of the old men with the jagged, yellowy nails, it's wrong…it's so wrong…but his mother tells him to do it and he does it because it's right to obey his mother, if he doesn't obey he is wrong, and when he is wrong she hurts him, but if he obeys, if he's good, if he doesn't cry this time maybe she'll love him.

The nightmare hours were waning.

Skwisgaar's grown-up eyes fluttered open; his grown-up mouth opened wide in a scream that he was powerless to stop. He scrambled out of the bed, oblivious to the warm body next to his, his cold hand pressed tightly against his lips as he stumbled his way into the bathroom.

He didn't even try for the toilet. It was too far away. His bony knees hit the tiled floor hard as he went down next to the bathtub. The contents of his writhing stomach

_(tummy, I have a tummyache, mother, no, I'm sick to my tummy)_

came up in an acidic, searing rush barely a moment later, and Skwisgaar tried hard not to breathe through his nose, knowing that the smell

_(icky, mother, you smell icky, the man smells icky, mother)_

of acid and liquor and what little food he'd managed to eat would have mixed togther into something that would only make him him puke more. It did no good, and it was no surprise really, it never did any good, and Skwisgaar threw up again, he _had _to throw up, it made him feel cleaner, made him feel less corrupt

_(wrong it's wrong but mother I love you)_

and filthy, and he slid two of his long fingers down his throat until he was bringing up nothing but blood-tinged bile.

Skwisgaar spit into the bathtub, dry heaving, his stomach emptied but his mind a roiling mess of memories that he couldn't get rid of as easily. He curled up on the cold tile floor and screamed again, screamed until his head ached, screamed until his acid-scorched throat was raw red agony, and when he felt a hand on his shoulder he flinched and curled more tightly into himself.

The hand never left. Its warm weight became more real as Skwisgaar began to come out of his nightmares, as he began to realize that the touch was not that of a high-heeled shoe or that of a greasy, stinking old man. It was just a hand.

"_Toki's hand," _ he thought, and suddenly he felt sick again from the shame.

Skwisgaar, wrapped around his own knees like an unborn child in the womb, wished for one of the quadrillionth times in his life (but only about the tenth since joining Dethklok) that he was dead. He wished it hard and with a childlike hope that it might come true, that he did not have to look up and see the pity in Toki's eyes, that he did not have to get up from this cold, hard floor and explain what had just happened. He curled himself tighter, shaking, and wished even harder. He even contemplated praying before deciding that any god that would hear the prayers of a man like him was probably a god better left alone. He knew his wishes weren't coming true when he felt Toki's arms around his shoulders, felt himself being lifted gently into a sitting position.

"_Skwis," _Toki mumbled softly into his ear, _"At least get up and come back to bed. It's warm there, you'll freeze to death on this floor."_

Skwisgaar jerked his shoulders out of Toki's hands, turning his back to him before he'd even seen his lover's face.

"_I want to fucking freeze to death. Leave me alone."_

He tried to make his voice sharp, tried to make it as cold and angry as possible. He would do anything—_anything—_to keep Toki from seeing him like this, to keep Toki from knowing the broken, sick part of him that was still so disgustingly vulnerable after all these years, to keep Toki from ever, ever finding out.

Skwisgaar sat with his eyes closed and waited for the warmth at his back to shrink away. Toki always shrank away when Skwisgaar was cruel, always had, but this time Toki didn't move. Instead Skwisgaar felt himself drawn into arms stronger than his own as Toki pulled him close, nestling Skwisgaar's bony back against his broad chest. His long legs lay warm on either side of Skwisgaar's own, and as Toki began rubbing his sunken stomach, Skwisgaar felt a pang of guilt that he would be so cold to anyone who gave enough of a damn to try to comfort him in the throes of his pathetic nightmares…but since when had he ever been comforted like this?

"_Well if you're going to sit here like an idiot and freeze to death, then I guess I'll freeze to death too," _said Toki, _"Because I'm not leaving you alone, Skwisgaar."_

"_You're the idiot," _Skwisgaar snapped, but his anger was half-hearted. _"Just go back to bed. I'm fine."_

"_You're lying." _Toki's voice was quiet. _"You're lying because you still don't want to let me help you."_

"_You're not supposed to be helping me," _Skwisgaar answered. He had begun shivering now; the floor _was _rather cold, and he was still naked. Gooseflesh crept up his legs and arms, standing his downy, golden body hair on end. _"I don't need help."_

"_Tell that to your puke in the tub," _Toki said lightly, but his voice was not unkind. He tucked his arms underneath Skwisgaar's and stood up, bringing the Swede slowly to his feet as he rose.

Skwisgaar allowed Toki to pull him up. The bloodrush to his head made him feel wobbly, and his stomach was rolling and pitching as if a small hurricane had taken up residence inside it. Still, he was able to make his own way to the sink. He swished some mouthwash; it burned his recently abused mouth, but he felt a little cleaner than he had before.

It was the first time he had never had to take a hot shower after the nightmare (_the memory, _the cruel part of his mind insisted)—the first time he hadn't scorched his skin pink trying to clean away filth that was decades old. Instead, he crawled into bed and Toki tucked himself against his back, one calloused hand rubbing soothing circles against the Swede's abdomen.

He was a thousand times grateful that Toki didn't ask any questions that night. The questions would come—he knew they would come, he had known it the moment that Toki had whispered _"You're lying," _for the very first time over a month ago, but he couldn't answer them tonight. All he wanted now was to sleep without dreaming, to sleep without remembering, and with Toki's chin nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder, Skwisgaar finally felt _right._

He slept soundly this time, and Toki never moved from behind him, never took his arm from around the Swede's thin waist. Every now and then he couldn't help himself—he pulled Skwisgaar's skinny body more tightly against his own, as if he were pulling him away from some unseen horror.

Those were just the kinds of horrors Skwisgaar needed pulling away from—the ones they all needed pulling away from, actually. They could all face any terror that existed within the domain of the real world, or even from a fantasy world at that—lake trolls hadn't struck fear into their hearts and neither had the Devil himself.

What frightened them were the things that lived in their minds, Toki realized; things they still loved, despite the horror and terror that laced that love.

Toki wouldn't remember his revelation when he woke. It occurred to him on the edge of sleep, the worst time for remembering. He woke only to the realization that Skwisgaar was gone, and his side of the bed was cold.


	9. Chapter 8

About two hours before Toki woke to find himself alone in the big white bed, and an hour before Skwisgaar opened his swollen eyes and dragged himself into the bathroom, the phone in Charles' office began to ring.

Charles himself was out in the main room, overseeing a group of Klokateers as they cleaned up the leftover mayhem of the night before. Only his assistant remained in his office, and his assistant was currently asleep; she had been lulled by the tiny speakers in her ears that blared a symphonic version of Dethklok's last album.

The phone rang on, unanswered. Charles' voicemail picked up at last, and a harried, nervous message was left by the caller.

Charles' assistant slept on.

xXx

The moment Skwisgaar opened his eyes, he knew that it was going to be a very bad day. He could tell from the way his sore eyelids barely parted, and from the painful throb that pulsed in the middle of his forehead like an emerging tumor.

He tried to ignore the signs. He closed his eyes and pretended he couldn't feel the deep ache in his head. He settled more deeply into Toki's broad chest and _tried, _but it was no good. His headache was only growing worse, the little bits of sleep in the corners of his eyes itched, and Skwisgaar wanted aspirin.

He disentangled himself from Toki's possessive embrace and stood, perhaps a little too quickly; there was a dizzying moment of vertigo before he felt capable of walking even the short way to the bathroom. When he reached it—after steadying himself against the wall the entire way—he went immediately for the mirrored medicine cabinet.

He paused with his hand halfway to the cabinet, frozen by his reflection.

His eyelids were puffy, swollen from tears, from the way he had rubbed them so viciously the night before in an effort to disguise those same tears. Thin red lines mapped the way from his lashline to the pale blue of his irises. The skin below his eyes had turned a bruiselike shade of lavender, and his hollow cheeks were colorless, nearly translucent. For the first time in his life, he was noticing lines other than the tiny crow's feet he'd had since he was twenty-five or so. His head swam; his stomach rolled.

He looked old.

He looked like death.

He looked like _her._

He nearly broke the mirror with his fist as the realization took hold; instead, he snatched the cabinet open and grabbed the aspirin. He shook four of the little white pills into his hand and threw them into his mouth, chewing them like candy. As bitter saliva flooded his mouth, he ran cold water into the sink and splashed it on his face. The sudden chill shocked his system, and after a moment or two, he felt better: more awake, less hung-over.

For a moment, Skwisgaar contemplated taking a shower…most of what he'd thrown up last night was liquid, and what wasn't would go down the drain easily anyway. He changed his mind when his vision began to get swimmy again; he wasn't sure he could stand up in the stall without slipping. He settled for pulling his slightly lank hair back into a ponytail instead, and began digging through his suitcase for a pair of track pants and an undershirt.

He found the track pants, but no shirt. He'd just pulled Toki's shirt from the night before over his head when there came a knock at the door, and that was when Skwisgaar remembered his conviction that today was not going to be a good day.

The Klokateer in the doorway handed him an envelope and bowed respectfully before blending back into the darkness of the hall. Skwisgaar shut the door on him, shaken at the script on the front of the envelope; it read _Skwisgaar, _and it was in the Robot's handwriting.

"_Skwisgaar,_

_ You were seen. Not by Nathan or Murderface, Thank God, and not by any fans or paparazzi either, but you were seen by a plainclothes Gear and that's bad enough. You need to be more careful or you need to come out; make up your mind._

_ Charles Ofdensen"_

Skwisgaar crumpled the stiff paper in his bony fist, scowling. Ofdensen was right, of course…when was the robot _not _right?

He looked over his shoulder at the brown-haired lump buried in white blankets. The lump rose and fell in gentle waves as Toki breathed; it was an even, soothing motion. Skwisgaar closed his eyes and wished fervently that he'd never woken up, or that when he had, he could have managed to lay there and listen to Toki's breathing until he fell back asleep.

_Wish in one hand, shit in the other…_ Skwisgaar thought, sighing heavily and tossing the manager's note on the floor. He stood over Toki for several moments, watching as the Norwegian mumbled in his sleep and shoved the blanket away from his torso. The blond's pale eyes roved along every curve and plane and angle of Toki's exposed skin, taking in each place he'd ravenously explored the previous night, each place he'd touched, caressed, kissed. He had seen Toki's body as he had never seen it before, and even now, as he stood above his rhythm guitarist with his mind reeling, he felt his cock beginning to stir, heard his heart beginning to hammer in his thin chest. He very nearly crawled into bed to give Toki a little good-morning gift…but then Toki stretched his arms above his head.

Skwisgaar froze in place, his narrow body inclined ever so slightly forward. His eyes locked in on the bulging muscles of Toki's arms…the arms that had wrapped around him as he screamed helplessly on his bathroom floor, the arms that pulled him up and held him close as he shivered, the arms that had tightened around him even as he snapped at the man to whom they belonged. Those were the arms that he had leaned on as Toki helped him to the sink, the arms that had half-carried him back to bed, the arms that had held him all throughout the night as if he were some small, terrified child.

Skwisgaar gazed at those arms and recoiled.

_I shouldn't be feeling like this, _he thought, but the tide of embarrassment rose from his toes to his scalp in a blushing wave. _I shouldn't be feeling this, I shouldn't…_

His words meant nothing. Shame was rising in the wake of embarrassment, shame so deep and acute and familiar that Skwisgaar's empty stomach began to roil ominously. He drew away from Toki, away from the bed; his thin shoulders hunched as he remembered the events of the night before.

_The mem…the _nightmares_, _he thought, beginning to shake, _The nightmares…_

He gagged on his own saliva. His back thudded into the wall across from the bed and he sank down, long legs pulled up tightly to his chest, as he remembered what had happened the night before. Toki had heard him screaming, he had seen him throw up until threads of blood showed up in his bile. Toki had seen the tears, had heard him crying. Toki had pulled him up out of the fetal position, had held him and calmed him even when Skwisgaar snapped and snarled. Toki had seen him come unhinged, and no one—_no one—_was ever supposed to have witnessed that.

Skwisgaar wrapped his long arms around his knees and began to rock, feeling sick, feeling ashamed, feeling weak…feeling like a failure. His stomach was a whirlpool of nausea and he dug his teeth into the meat of his forearm in an attempt to keep his sickness under control; when the acid seared its way up and into his throat, he forced it down again in one painful swallow.

He scrambled to his feet then, heartburn glowing inside his chest like a capering fire-imp, and reached for the doorknob. He had just opened the door, had just lifted his foot to flee through it, when he paused. Guilt ate through the shame for a moment and he looked back at Toki, who was now mumbling to himself and reaching toward the place where Skwisgaar's body had lain.

_This is a dick move, _he thought, and he hated himself. The guilt spread through him like a poison that had been injected directly into his heart, and still Skwisgaar slipped through the door, still he closed it behind him, still he trudged down the hall, down the steps, and away from the only person in the world to ever see him fall apart.

_How the fuck will I ever be able to look him in the eye again? _He thought to himself, descending into the newly-cleaned main room. His arms were wrapped around his chest; he shivered as he sank into one of the dark, plush couches that lined the edges of the room. _He'll never see me the same way._

A Gear materialized beside him, but Skwisgaar didn't even see her until she bowed her head, exposing the brightly colored dreadlocks that streaked through her ponytail. "My lord, do you require anything?" she asked.

"_Nej, _unless yous can be tellingks me hows to goes back ins times," Skwisgaar mumbled. "Goes away, wills you?"

The Gear bowed again and disappeared as silently as she had come.

_The Gears could murder us all in our sleep and we'd never hear a thing, _Skwisgaar mused, still surprised by the stealth with which she'd come to him. _Of course, then the Robot would murder _them, _so I guess we don't have anything to worry about._

As if the devil had spoken, Charles appeared at the top of the staircase. At least, Skwisgaar _thought _it was him. The Robot looked…well, not so robotic today. He seemed to have buttoned his suit jacket wrong, and his tie…

_How the fuck did he manage to put his tie on backward? I mean, is that even possible…? _Skwisgaar leaned forward over his crossed arms and squinted for a better look. Sure enough, the short part of the Robot's tie was facing the front, lying in the middle of the longer, thicker part.

"Robots?" Skwisgaar said tentatively when Charles had reached the foot of the stairs. "Is you malfunkshunningks?"

"Skwisgaar?" the manager looked at him, as if startled to see him there. "Oh. Skwisgaar. Yes, hello. Have you…have you heard any phones ringing lately?"

Charles' bizarre question managed to distract Skwisgaar from his own problems quite thoroughly. "Whats does you means, ringingks phones? We's Dethklok, de phones be ringingks all de times," he replied. "And does…does you has your glasses on upsides down?"

"Oh." Charles looked down at his nose , going momentarily cross eyed, and Skwisgaar gaped at him in wonder. "Yes, yes I do." He righted them absently and continued, "What I mean to say is, have you noticed the phones ringing more often than usual?"

Skwisgaar blinked at him. "Dids you steals Pickle's leftsovers drugs or somethingks?"

"Oh, no," Charles waved his hand, then sifted it through his disheveled hair. "I haven't taken anything. Although perhaps I should. I wish you had noticed the phones, Skwisgaar. I certainly didn't."

"Whats wit' de fuckingks phones?" Skwisgaar asked sharply. He was beginning to feel a little frightened. If the Robot had lost his mind, which he obviously had, then Dethklok was not going to survive for very long.

"Well, you see, New Method Wellness has been attempting to contact me since…well, since the day Pickles arrived." Charles' hands were shaking as he adjusted his tie; he still had not noticed that it was completely backward.

"…ands?" Skwisgaar prompted, resisting the growing urge to grab the Robot's fidgety hands.

"And he is not there," the manager replied. His arms dropped away from the hopeless case of the tie as he spoke, hanging limply at his sides, as if he had no clue just what they were for, anymore.

"Nots…" Skwisgaar felt his stomach drop. He began to shake again. "Nots dere? Den wheres de hells is he?"

"No one knows," the manager said flatly. "He…he escaped the very first day, the director of the facility informed me that Pickles was in their care for nor more than three hours. They…an orderly went in to check on him and found that the man…the doctor, psychiatrist or whatever he was…they found him on the floor of Pickles' room. Knocked out. With a…with a lamp. He remembered being knocked out with the lamp. After that…no one has seen him. He's…disappeared."

"Disappeareds?" Skwisgaar's voice cracked on the word and he forced his rising panic back down into his chest. "Peoples don'ts just disappears. Pickle musts be somesplace. Wheres coulds he haves gone?"

"No one at the facility seems to know," the manager said. Emotion was beginning to disconnect from his voice, and Skwisgaar found himself strangely relieved. He felt even better when Charles continued, saying, "I am, of course, pressing every charge imaginable against the facility and those that were in charge of it. It will soon be a parking lot. I just…I don't seem to know what to do otherwise."

"Pfft," Skwisgaar sat up, nervous energy taking him over, and began to pace. His fingers danced gently against his skin, over nonexistent strings, though his arms remained crossed. "We has to be findingks hims. Dats what's we has to be doingks. It's can'ts be dats hard, Pickle been famous since he was a kids. Somebodies will be spottingks him, den we cans picks him up, and dens I can beats da shits outs of hims for scaringks us likes dis."

"That will perhaps be more easily said than done, Skwisgaar," Charles sighed. He had noticed that his buttons were askew, and had fixed his jacket. To the tie he remained oblivious. "It has been a little over twenty-four hours since Pickles went missing. Don't you suppose that someone would have noticed him by now? He is, after all, one of the five best-known faces in the world. His hair is so red that it's orange, and what's more, it's dreaded. He has a particularly distinctive accent. He should have been noticed by now. Even if he was in disguise, he should have been noticed. There should be reports. There would be a trail of crazed fan bodies leading to where he is as they fight one another to the death for the chance to touch him. There's nothing, Skwisgaar. There's just…nothing. He walked out of New Method Wellness and disappeared."

At that, Charles sat down hard on couch that Skwisgaar had just vacated; the Swede was momentarily terrified that he would witness the Robot bursting into tears, but Charles' shoulders only quaked once or twice before they became still.

Silence hung in the air for an eternal minute before Charles looked up again. When he did, his eyes had gone flintlike; his features were haggard, but undreadable, and when he spoke, it was in a monotone that was like balm to Skwisgaar's panicked soul.

"Skwisgaar, would you please go wake the others and ask them to come downstairs? We will, of course, be flying back to Mordhaus later this morning, but I believe that I should inform Nathan, Toki, and William of Pickles' disappearance as soon as possible. Perhaps he has been in contact with one of them."

It was obvious that the manager did not believe that in the slightest, but Skwisgaar nodded his consent and hurried toward the stairs. He was halfway up before he remembered the Robot's tie, and turned to tell him he should fix it; as he opened his mouth to speak a scrap of bright red silk flew across the room, and Skwisgaar closed his mouth and continued up the steps.

He paused with his hand just above the knob of his own door. An image of Toki's bright blue eyes looking up at him with pity flashed mometarily across his mind, and in his head he heard Toki's voice murmuring _It's okay that you can't hold yourself together, Skwisgaar, it's okay that you scream and cry and puke like a baby when you have a nightmare…it's okay._

He drew his hand back and wrapped his skinny arms around his stomach and muttering curses. He rarely fucked up, but when he did, someone inevitably lied and told him that it was "okay." The words "it's okay" were the bane of his existence.

_I have to tell him about Pickles, _he told himself firmly, ignoring the nervous, nauseous feeling in his chest and stomach and closing his hand around the cold doorknob. _If he starts talking I'll just tell him it's important, I'll tell him to hurry downstairs and maybe…maybe this will make him forget._

Toki wouldn't forget, but Skwisgaar pretended to believe that he would as he opened his door and his mouth to cut off Toki's questions.

It took him a moment to realize that there was no Toki in his bedroom. He peered into his bathroom, even the closet, but Toki was gone.

_Fan-fucking-tastic, _he thought, and sighed heavily. _He woke up alone and now he thinks that you used him or something. You're a real fucking genius, Skwisgaar._

The Swede left his room and took the two steps across the narrow hall to Toki's door. He turned the knob, accustomed to walking into any and all of Toki's rooms without a knock or invitation, but he found the door locked against him.

_Fuck me, _he thought, resting his forehead against the steel door as Toki called out, "Who's theres?"

"_It's me, Toki," _Skwisgaar answered in Swedish. _"There's something important that I need to tell you. Open up, I'm in a hurry."_

He wasn't really—it would take Murderface and Nathan long enough to wake up, even longer to get out of bed, and even longer than that to get over their ire at being woken so early. A few minutes spent lingering with Toki would make no difference, but already Skwisgaar felt his palms beginning to sweat, his heart beginning to race, his gorge beginning to rise.

There was a clicking sound and the door opened a bit. Toki left it cracked and sat back down on his bed, duffel bag in his lap. He continued rummaging through it for something to wear. His heart was pounding in his chest, but when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was flat.

"_What's so important?" _he asked, not looking up.

Skwisgaar was silent for a long moment; Toki could feel the discomfort radiating off him in waves that broke like shattering glass against his heart.

"_Just tell me already," _he said, voice sharper than it would have been had he been speaking English. _"So you can go. Since you're in such a hurry."_

"_Pickles is missing."_

Toki looked up suddenly, distracted for the moment from the raging conflict of his own emotions. Skwisgaar saw the change, and was grateful for it; Toki's snappish, brooding mood made him nervous.

"_He escaped the rehabilitation center somehow. The manager sent me to tell everyone," _he explained.

"_Was…" _Toki's eyes were softer now, even hopeful, and Skwisgaar swallowed the sour taste of his own guilt as it crawled up his throat. _"Was that why you weren't there this morning? Did the manager come find you?"_

Skwisgaar's brain screamed at him to lie, to lie and let that hope in Toki's eyes grow into happiness, into forgiveness.

"_No," _he said instead, as the panicky, shameful feeling from earlier began to turn his saliva to sludge in his mouth. _"I was awake already. I saw him downstairs. I've…got to go wake up Nathan and Murderface."_

He turned abruptly, grabbed the doorknob and swallowed painfully, but from over his shoulder he heard Toki ask softly,

"_Skwisgaar…are you all right?"_

"_Yeah. Fine. See you downstairs."_

He shut the door behind him and fled for the bathroom.

Toki sat on his bed for a moment, staring at the door, slowly beginning to realize that _he_ was not all right. Not all right at all.


	10. Chapter 9

"What do you mean _missing?" _Nathan thundered as he sprung upward from the couch, his big hands clenched into heavy fists.

The manager pinched the bridge of his nose, motioning with his other hand for Nathan to sit back down. Nathan didn't.

"He's missing, Nathan," Charles said at length, after it became evident that Nathan was not to be calmed. "No one knows where he is. No one has seen him, no one has heard from him. He's…he's essentially disappeared." The manager swiped his thumb and forefinger beneath his eyes as he spoke. The trick was lost on everyone but Skwisgaar, who was the only one that seemed to realize that Charles Foster Ofdensen was inches away from breaking.

A few tense minutes passed, with Nathan curling and uncurling his hands and Charles unable to meet any of their eyes. Murderface was the one that broke the silence, his voice hesitant and flat, as if he still believed that this early-morning fiasco was all a very bad dream.

"Scho…what are we schupposched to do now?" Murderface shifted position on the couch, his dark, scarred forearms crossed tightly across his chest. He was looking at his feet.

"I am pressing every charge imaginable against the rehabilitation center where Pickles was sent," Charles assured them. "I have also notified the authorities of Pickles' disappearance, and he is officially a Missing Person. If any of you have any idea whatsoever as to where he may have gone, what he may be doing…please, let me know now, so that I can pass that information along."

_Did anyone else notice the way his voice trembled on 'please?' _Skwisgaar thought to himself, moments before Nathan's booming voice redirected all focus toward himself.

"_No," _he growled sharply, and everyone, even the manager, shivered. Nathan angry was a frightening experience, even for the manager.

"No," he said again, a little more quietly and calmly, as if he sensed his outburst had unnerved those around him. "Those…authority people can't be telling everyone in the whole fucking world that Pickles is gone."

The manager swallowed once to compose himself, then said, "Nathan, how else do you propose we find Pickles if we don't enlist the help of outside authorities?"

Nathan was pacing up and down in front of his bandmates. "Fuck if I know," he mumbled, and began chewing on his black-painted fingernails. "But…if the whole fuckin' world knows that Pickles is, uh…gone, then…then, well, we like…we might not be the first ones to find him. And we, well, we gotta find him first. I figured you of all people woulda understood that, Robot," he added, pausing in his pacing to glance at the manager.

Charles was silent for a long moment, gazing into Nathan's hectic green eyes as if he thought he could find the answer for the whole ridiculous mess somewhere within their depths. He found none. At length, he nodded his consent, and Nathan flopped back onto the couch between Murderface and Skwisgaar.

"I understand your concern, Nathan, and I apologize if I…if I didn't seem to be considering Pickles' well-being as fully as I should have." His hand snaked upward to fiddle with the tie that wasn't there before Charles jerked it back down into his pocket. "I will take all necessary precautions to ensure that the public has no inkling whatsoever that Dethklok's drummer has gone missing. Only people most pertinent to the investigation will be notified."

Skwisgaar felt Toki move slightly next to him as the younger man cocked his head to the side and asked, "Whats 'pertsnet' means?"

Skwisgaar—who was wondering that himself—glanced toward Toki despite the near-suffocating weight of guilt inside his chest. The younger man was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, arms locked around his shins and the lower part of his face pressed against the tops of his knees. His bright blue eyes never once strayed in Skwisgaar's direction.

"It means 'important,' Toki," Nathan answered. Toki nodded. Skwisgaar looked away and tried to ignore the tempest his nerves seemed to insist upon stirring up in his stomach.

"So," Charles continued, pushing his glassed up on his nose with one finger, "Perhaps we can now get to work."

A Klokateer appeared out of the shadows so quickly and quietly that the four remaining members of -Dethklok had to do a double take—she seemed to have materialized out of thin air.

"My Lords," she murmured, and bowed slightly before producing a yellow legal pad and ballpoint pen from the bag she carried at her side.

"Sit," Charles instructed, waving vaguely to one of the armchairs nearby. The woman obeyed, crossing her legs and propping the legal pad against one knee.

Once she was seated and ready, Charles promptly ignored her and addressed himself to the four men on the sofa—the sofa that looked just a little too big without Pickles to take up his small amount of space.

"Boys, we are going to brainstorm," he told them, and explained what the word meant before Toki or Skwisgaar could even ask. "We are going to sit and think of every possible place Pickles could have gone, every possible person he could have contacted, until we have something at least resembling a clue of his whereabouts."

"Why usch?" asked Murderface, whose voice suggested that he still hoped to wake up at any moment.

"Because we know Pickles," the manager replied. "Now, who wants to make the first suggestion?"

Skwisgaar felt himself wincing as Nathan and Murderface looked toward him, eyebrows raised. He met their glance with a shrug, then a nod, although he dreaded the manager's reaction to the one little secret the band had managed to keep from him over the years.

"Uh…" Nathan chewed on another fingernail for a moment before continuing, "We should, uh…probably talk to Derek."

Charles raised his eyebrows. Skwisgaar felt Toki turn toward him as well, and knew without looking that Toki was as confused as the manager.

"And who, pray tell, is Derek?" Charles asked, and Skwisgaar recognized the icy timbre of his voice almost immediately.

"_Nej, _Robots, no," he said quickly, catching Ofdensen's eye so that he would know what Skwisgaar was trying to say. "Derek….Dereks was beingks de drugs dealers. Dat's alls."

"He was, uh…ours too," Nathan muttered. "Not just Pickles'."

"How come I didn'ts know abouts this guy?" Toki asked, before Skwisgaar realized it, Nathan's nerves snapped a little.

"Because you wouldn't have been able to keep your fucking mouth shut about him," the frontman snapped, "And giving you a way to get at whatever drugs you wanted would asking for a fucking lawsuit and God only knows what other kind of fucking disasters."

Toki's body hardened beside him, hardened until it was trembling. Skwisgaar watched in trepidation out of the corner of his eye as Toki unfolded his legs and rose to his feet, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. _He's closer to the edge than they think, _Skwisgaar said to himself

"And whats," he muttered through gritted teeth, "Does you mean by thats?"

Skwisgaar knew that tone of voice and hoped that Nathan would know it too, that Nathan would give up, because he wasn't sure he could calm Toki now…wasn't even sure that Toki would listen to him at all.

"He meansch you'd halluschinate schome crazy schit and kill schomebody," Murderface answered. His voice was flat, devoid of any meanness, of any emotion whatsoever.

"I woulds not—"

"Oh, yes you would, you fucking flip out when you _drink _too much, who the fuck knows what you'd do with LSD or some shit in your system—"

Skwisgaar could feel the heat coming off Toki's body in waves, could sense the tensing of his many muscles, and he grabbed Toki's wrist just as he was shifting his body to spring at Nathan.

"Toki," Skwisgaar mumbled, pulling him back down next to him and doing his best not to look at him, not to see whatever it was would be in Toki's face—accusation, hope, hatred. "Toki, nots now."

Toki wrenched his wrist out of Skwisgaar's grip and laughed—it was brief, bitter, and felt to Skwisgaar like a whiplash, but Toki sat down.

The manager cleared his throat, and Skwisgaar looked up at him. Charles gave him a tight, disapproving glare before glancing sympathetically at Toki—still so tightly wound that he was shaking—and getting back to the topic at hand.

"Derek the drug dealer will be contacted," he said. "Someone please state his phone number, or numbers."

Nathan rattled it off from memory, and the silent Klokateer took it down.

"Anything else?" the manager prompted.

"His family, maybe?" Nathan said. "I know they're not, uh…Pickles' most favorite people, but, uh…" he shrugged his big shoulders.

"Check with his family, yes, that will be done," Charles said.

Next to Skwisgaar, Toki sneered, "Seth."

They eyes of everyone in the room narrowed at the mention of Pickles' brother.

"Yes…yes, Seth must be interrogated…" the expression on Charles' face suggested that he would dearly love to be the one performing such an interrogation.

"Bulletsch, Schammy and Tony," Murderface sighed. He had evidently given up the idea that he was dreaming.

"His former band—good idea, William," Charles said.

Murderface took no pleasure in the praise, as he usually would. He leaned back into the cushions and stared forward, brooding.

And there they sat for the next several hours as invisible Klokateers readied the Hatredcopter for the trip back to Mordhaus. Outside, the day wore on. The news that Dethklok was leaving the festival well before schedule resulted in rampant rioting. Several were injured and many died, but the roiling crowd never came close to the 'Copter—patrols of armed Klokateers and a hastily erected, high-voltage electric fence saw to that.

The hours passed, as hours will do, but each tick of the clock was like an hour in and of itself. Hours within hours—it wasn't a bad description of the way time passed for the remaining members of Dethklok and their manager as the hunt for Pickles was put into action.

It also wasn't a bad description for the way time passed for Skwisgaar and Toki, whose private, two-personed world had been suddenly and—for Toki, at least—inexplicably upset. With the news of Pickles' disappearance coming right on the heels of Skwisgaar's bizarre behavior, Toki's nerves were more on edge than ever. Not that he was the only one, of course—Nathan, for awhile, was more grumpy and short tempered than ever before. Charles with an unbuttoned collar and loosened or missing tie became the norm. Murderface was quiet, devoid of petty viciousness. Skwisgaar's fingers hadn't touched real guitar strings in days, although they got quite a workout with imaginary ones thanks to all the stress.

_No, Toki's not the only one who's stressed the fuck out, _Skwisgaar thought to himself, a week or so after their return to Mordhaus. _But he's the one least likely to be able to handle it._

Skwisgaar was standing in the middle of the corridor, halfway between his room and Toki's, leaning back against the cold stone wall with his thin arms crossed over his sunken, sick stomach. He was dizzy again. He knew what a ticking time bomb Toki had become, knew he was the only one that could defuse him, calm him, help him, but every time he found the balls to walk up to Toki's door and raise his knuckles to knock, he saw himself sprawled on the bathroom floor, screaming, Toki holding him in his big arms…and he saw what he couldn't tell Toki. He saw it more than he had in years, and he'd turn his back on Toki's door, his empty stomach revolting weakly, and walk away.

_At least I didn't meet the manager this time, _Skwisgaar thought, moving away from the wall and beginning to make his slow way back down the corridor to his own room. Despite the dark circles under Charles' eyes and the slump in his shoulders, he still found the energy to glare at Skwisgaar every time they crossed paths near Toki's bedroom door—and they had crossed paths there often.

Skwisgaar walked with his eyes on the floor, but for all the blond was actually seeing, he might as well have been walking around blindfolded. He was so preoccupied that when he rammed shoulders with someone in the hall, he mumbled his apologies without even looking up.

When the sharp odor of vodka reached his nose, his first thought was _Has Pickles come home? _His second thought, when he felt the force with which he hit the wall when he was shoved, was _The manager is way more pissed than I thought._

Except that when he actually looked, he saw Toki's bare, scarcrossed back retreating down the hallway. The younger man's broad shoulders were bunched in tension, and there was a suspicious red Solo cup held loosely in his left hand.

Skwisgaar opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when he realized that there was not a damn thing he _could _say…and yet not saying anything seemed more inadequate than saying something stupid.

Skwisgaar was just about to speak when Toki stopped moving. He turned around, and Skwisgaar lost all ability to think, let alone speak.

Skwisgaar couldn't see Toki's eyes; his long, lank hair was hanging in two thick curtains by the sides of his face, casting it into shadow. Despite the Swede's height, Toki seemed to be towering over him; his broad shoulders were drawn back, his big arms swinging heavily at his sides. The hand holding the Solo cup clenched, and the jagged, harsh sound of crushed plastic echoed down the stone corridor. Skwisgaar watched him; watched the veins in Toki's thick forearms pop out as he squeezed the cup until his hand shook. Clear liquid was dripping from his fist and the reek of vodka wafted its lazy way toward Skwisgaar, who was poised to sidestep if Toki directed his drunken, pent-up fury in his direction.

Unfortunately, the Swede never saw it coming. He could have handled a thrown fist, could have dealt with an attempted tackle. He had honestly started to think of letting Toki have at him—he deserved it, and how many times had he beaten the shit out of Toki, anyway?—but then the weird, high-pitched sound of plastic hitting stone floor brought him back to reality, and reality was Toki's raised head and bright blue gaze locking with his, burning into him like a flame until Skwisgaar felt less than the meanest organism that had ever crawled from the muck of primordial oceans. He felt sickened by his own existence; Toki's perfectly dry eyes were hurting him worse than any tears he'd even seen fall from them.

"_Toki…_" Skwisgaar said, and took a step in his direction. The moment Skwisgaar moved, Toki's eyes narrowed to slits, as if having the blond come any nearer to him was the most undesirable thing he could imagine. Skwisgaar stopped, standing helpless beneath his lover's harsh stare.

"_I trusted you,_" Toki said, and Skwisgaar felt his mind and heart reeling in painful tandem as he continued, "_Never again._"

Toki turned and made his weaving way down the corridor; Skwisgaar curled his arms around his stomach and sank to the floor, swallowing everything he wanted to say, swallowing the pain, swallowing his sickness.


	11. Chapter 10

"Kieran Seth McCormack, when was the last time you laid eyes on your younger brother, Aiden Sean McCormack?"

Behind the one-way glass that separated the remaining members of Dethklok from the room in which their manager was conducting his interrogation, the band exchanged surprised sidelong glances. None of them had ever known Pickles' full name until now.

Seth's snarling voice redirected their gaze forward; Pickles' brother sat in a straight-back wooden chair, his arms tied tightly behind him. The only light in the room shone down fiercely into his squinted green eyes.

"I haven't seen 'im since ya shipped my ass off t'Ahstralia, ya know it good n' well!" Seth jerked his arms; the chair legs screeched across the dark tile floor.

The back of the manager's hand connected with Seth's cheek so suddenly that Toki—more than a little drunk, and therefore unsteady on his feet anyway—sucked in his breath and grabbed hold of the nearby desk. Nathan, who stood beside him, pulled the chair from the other side of the desk and pushed the younger man into it.

"Please sit still," Charles muttered, when Seth finished howling in pain. "This will be so much easier if you just cooperate."

"Why should I c'ahperate with ya? Ya got me tied up down here like some kinda fackin' criminal when I ain't even done nothin' wrahng…"

_Smack. _

"That will be for us to decide," Charles replied. "Now shut up and answer the question." He pulled a small white cloth out of his pocket and began to clean his glasses as he waited for Seth to comply.

"Th' last time I seen m' little bro was right b'fore ya shipped me off t' Ahstralia. I swear!" he added, flinching as the manager raised his hand.

Disappointed, Charles let his hand fall. Instead, he tucked them both into his pants pockets. "Very well then. When was the last time you heard from him?"

"Dood, do ya really think he'd ever contact me _voluntarily?"_

Behind the glass, Toki began to snicker, then to hiccup. Skwisgaar glanced at him; Nathan smacked him on the back of the head and hissed, "Shut up!" but the Norwegian wasn't fazed. He continued giggling to himself as the manager began to pace up and down in front of Seth.

"I will, ah, be asking the questions here," he said. "Now, I ask you again…when was the last time you heard from your little brother?"

Seth's reply was drowned out by Nathan's incredulous, booming voice.

"Toki, what the _fuck _are you doing with that?" he snarled, furious. He snatched the vodka bottle from Toki's left hand,; he, Skwisgaar, and Murderface stared in horror at the two inches of liquid left inside of it. "Don't you fuckin' understand what's going on here?"

Skwisgaar flinched as Toki looked up at Nathan with eyes that were bleary red and dangerous. "Sure. Set's beings inter…inter…interrogsogatesded," he shrugged, and made a grab for the bottle. Nathan jerked it away and thrust it into Murderface's pudgy hands.

"No fuckin' shit, Sherlock," he shouted, rounding on Toki completely, "But he's being interrogated because _Pickles is fucking missing, you numb fuck, and this is no goddamn time for you to be drunk!" _Nathan's fist came down on the desk behind Toki with a _thud _that cracked the wood. Murderface and Skwisgaar shrunk back—Toki, his bloodshot eyes narrowing to slits, stood.

"How's the fuck would you be knowings when it's times for be to be fuckings drunk, Nat'ans?" he asked, and all the alarm bells in Skwisgaar's mind sounded in a violent cacophony. He actually took one step toward Nathan and Toki before Murderface's arm cut him off.

"Don't think now'sch schuch a good time to get between thosche two," he mumbled. "Let 'em be."

"It's never fucking time for your ass to be drunk!" Nathan bellowed, "You're a fucking one-man wrecking machine if you so much as take a fuckin' shot, and we don't need you hammered out of what little mind you've got while we're tryin' to find Pickles!"

"Nat'ans, _stops—" _Skwisgaar began, but the words barely made it out of his mouth. Toki was grinning; his teeth looked feral as they flashed in the light. Before anyone, even Nathan, knew what was happening, Toki had reared back and clocked the frontman on the side of his head. Nathan stumbled backward, hand pressed to his temple; Toki took advantage of his distraction, siezed the bigger man's shoulders, and bashed his forehead into Nathan's skull.

"Or not," Murderface muttered, dropping the vodka bottle. "Get the kid, I'll get Nathan."

Most men would have been down for the count after suffering blows from Toki, but Nathan, bleeding from his split forehead, lunged after the Norwegian football-style. Murderface sacked him in the legs before he could reach his target and looked back at Skwisgaar, who stood rooted to the spot, staring in horror at the swaying Toki.

"Get his assch outta here already!" Murderface shouted, "Ya think I can hold thisch guy all day?"

Before Skwisgaar could compose himself enough to make a move, Toki began to laugh. He looked up from the struggling Nathan to the paralyzed Skwisgaar, laughing with no mirth whatsoever. Blood streamed from his forehead, striping his paled face in rivulets of red. The knuckles of his right hand were lumpy and misshaped, already turning a hideous shade of blue from their connection to Nathan's hard head. He picked up the vodka bottle in his abused hand and chugged what little remained, then smashed it on the floor in front of Nathan, laughing even more as the dark-haired man sliced his forearms on the tiny shards.

"You can forgets _that, _Will," Toki sneered. "That guy woulds never do nothings for me. He'll just stands there…" Toki took a step toward Skwisgaar, who had begun trembling as soon as Toki began laughing.

"…and stares at me…" Toki continued, taking another step toward the blond until Skwisgaar could smell the liquor radiating from his pores.

"…and nots do a gods…damned…_thing." _Toki shoved him backward, hard; Skwisgaar went sprawling to the floor, the breath knocked out of him, Toki's bright, hellish eyes burning into him from above.

"This guy wouldn'ts be doing a gods damned thing for me," Toki repeated, lips twisted in a cruel smile as Skwisgaar tried to gain his footing. "No matters how bad I be needings him…fuck. Y'should knows by nows that he never does nothings for nobodies unless there's somethings in it fors him."

"_Toki, wait—" _Skwisgaar coughed, panic and nausea rising in his chest. _"Just…wait—"_

"_Fuck you," _Toki hissed, and left, slamming the door behind him.

Shaking, unable to breath properly, with his saliva thickening into poisonous paste in his mouth, Skwisgaar wrapped his arms above his head and tried to choke back tears. It wasn't until he had composed himself somewhat that he realized the other two members of the band were staring at him. Nathan's face was a mask of blood; his arms and palms were striped with it. Even the backs of Murderface's arms and hands were bleeding.

"The fuck did you _do _to him, Skwisgaar?" Nathan asked at length, trying to wipe the blood from his face with a hand that was equally as bloody.

"Yes, Skwisgaar," said a voice from the doorway. "What _have _you done to him?"

Ofdensen stood there, tie loose, arms crossed, glasses low on the bridge of his nose.

"Dude…are you _crying?"_ Murderface asked.

"…Ja. Get da fucks out da way."

He hurtled the singer and the bassist in one stretch of his long legs, and shoved past the manager so hard that he fell into the bits of bloody glass himself.

"What the fuck is with that guy?" Nathan asked, as the three of them stood up from the circle of glass.

Ofdensen gave no reply, but there was a small smile on his face as he urged the two men to the infirmary.

"Toki!" Skwisgaar called, running after the trail of blood the Norwegian had left behind him. "Toki!"

Faint laughter was his only answer-it came from somewhere far up the dark, stone staircase that led out of the bowels of Mordhaus. No elevator would take someone where the interrogation room lay.

_"Toki, stop running away. You need help, you're hurt, just stand still-"_ Skwisgaar was taking the steps two at a time, trying to catch up. Toki was drunk; he would be slow getting up the steep steps.

_"Oh, __**now**__ you wanna help me. Now that you're following a trail of my fucking blood up a flight of steps, after I called you out in front of the two people you were most worried about finding out what went on between us…__**now**__ you wanna help me. Is that it?"_

Skwisgaar paused on a landing, gazing up the set of steps that led to the next. He could make out Toki's burly figure standing there, swaying even though one hand was braced against the wall.

_"Toki..."_ he took a tentative step upward. _"Toki, we can talk about this. I promise we can, but right now you're in no shape to do it. You're drunk and you're angry and you're hurt pretty badly."_

_"What the fuck else did you expect me to be, Skwisgaar? Sober and happy and all right?" _Toki's hand slipped and he lurched forward, arms waving-Skwisgaar took the rest of the steps three at a time and caught him, pushing him back toward the safety of the landing.

Skwisgaar opened his mouth to speak, but Toki, whose bloody face was settled into the crook of his bony shoulder, snickered softly. The sound sent chills down Skwisgaar's spine strong enough to make his cock twitch; but it also made the hair on the back of his neck stand up again. He had fallen into a trap.

_"I know what you wanted from me now,"_ Toki muttered, his lips close to Skwisgaar's ear. He maneuvered the Swede's skinny body into the nearest wall, pressing himself against it so tightly that there was no chance for him to wriggle away. _"You could've just asked, you know. Spared me from thinking you actually fucking cared."_

He ground his hips into Skwisgaar's; the blond felt his cock perk up again.

_"Toki, no. You've got this all wrong…"_

_"Shut up."_

Toki pressed his mouth against Skwisgaar's so roughly that their teeth clicked together. The kiss was like rape, fueled by rage and flavored by blood, but Skwisgaar was too physically weak to escape it. In fact, though his mind and heart were screaming at him that it was wrong, his body was begging him not to move.

Finally, Toki pulled away; his smile was cruel as he ran his good hand down Skwisgaar's leg to grab the erection that strained the zipper of his jeans.

_"Now you'll know what it's like to wake up alone…motherfucker."_

The last thing Skwisgaar saw before he was shoved down the flight of steps was the hateful knowing in Toki's eyes. Toki knew. He knew everything, and had used it, as cruelly as he believed that Skwisgaar had used him.

By the time Ofdensen, Nathan, and Murderface found Skwisgaar sprawled on the landing, Toki was as lost as Pickles.


	12. Chapter 11

Hell is a nightmare you can feel.

In his hell, Skwisgaar is trapped in shadow.; Hhis only point of reference is the rough concrete beneath the knees of his jeans and the palms of his hands. The dim air is cold, and gooseflesh crawls over his skin like a million scurrying beetles. He can only see an inch or two beyond his body on all sides;—the rest is darkness. Terrified, he freezes in his submissive posture. Interminable minutes pass and his body grows weak. It begins to tremble, his elbows begin to give way, and just when he thinks he will have to meet the darkness, a hazy light appears far and above him.

The light is weak and pale, fluttering like some a dying moth, but it illuminates just enough of the way in front of him that Skwisgaar can see the stone staircase leading up to it. He scrambles up on his hands and knees, stripping the skin from his fingers, tearing his jeans, matting his hair with sweat. As he ascends, the light grows stronger, brighter, and Skwisgaar is able to rise to his feet like a man and run like a man toward his salvation.p

He knows now to whom the light belongs to. As he reaches the top of the staircase, he throws out his arms to hold the light, to hold Toki's haloed body to him, but as his fingers brush the dark golden skin of Toki's back the pale white scars cleave open. Streams of scarlet spill over Skwisgaar's white hands and the scream chokes in his throat; Toki is turning his head.

The eyes that gaze out of Toki's haggard face are dim and grey, nothing near the little-boy shade of blue Skwisgaar remembers so well. They rattle in their sockets, cold and lifeless as marbles; the voice that issues from Toki's lips is even worsemore horrifying.

"You did this," he whispers, and the words are poison. Skwisgaar sinks to his knees and then to his elbows, down to the blood-spattered stone, still unable to speak or shriek though his heart is threatening to burst from the words he cannot say. The light fades, and Toki fades, and Skwisgaar is left with only the blood and the shadows…and still, he cannot speak.

xXx

It wasn't until he thrashed upward from his bed like a drowning man that any sound escaped him, and when his sobs finally beat their way out of his thin chest, he let them come with a mixture of pain and relief. They wracked him terribly, until his bones felt out of place and a thread of sharp pain had sewn itself into his side, but even that was better than the hellish, hateful silence he was had been forced to endure during his…dream? Delusion? Hallucination, even?

Skwisgaar pondered this, fisting his hands into the center of the white sheet beneath him—and then screamed.

Blood ran in freshets down the back of his left hand, slipping coating it into a silky red glove, and suddenly Skwisgaar knew he was not having a dream or a delusion or a hallucination…he knew this was reality, it had always been reality, and his mind ran away with him.

_(the dark and the stone and the light and the blood and Toki oh God Toki what have I done to you)_

He screamed again, wrapping the white sheet around his hand, feeling his heartbeat doubling, trebling, feeling something like a dull hammer pounding the back of his skull, and he didn't register the presence of a single being other than himself until a large hand popped him across the face.

"Skwisgaar! Skwisgaar, shut the fuck up, goddammit, you're gonna wake the whole fuckin' house! I've already called the fuckin' doc about your IV, you've ripped the damn thing out all over again…oh fuck, why am I trying, you ain't gonna remember me talkin' to you anyway…"

The large hand that had connected so smartly with his cheek the moment before now took hold of the sheet wrapped around Skwisgaar's bleeding hand and applied more pressure than Skwisgaar, in his hysteria, had been capable of doing.

The back of his skull throbbed darkly as Skwisgaar fought a sickening wave of fear. He recognized that voice—no, he _knew _that voice;, knew it like he knew his own body. He knew it so well that it horrified him when he could not, to save his miserable life, remember the name of the man to whom it belonged to it.

It came to him gradually, the way one distinguishes the words being said behind closed doors. Skwisgaar muttered, "Nat'ans?"

The pressure on his hand let up for a split second; Skwisgaar heard a sharp intake of air in the darkness before it resumed.

"Yeah, Skwisgaar. It's Nathan." The voice was tentative and hopeful, two emotions Skwisgaar could never recall associating with Nathan Explosion—but there was no mistaking that voice. "Ofdensen and Murderface are on their way down."

Skwisgaar took so long to reply that he could see the panic rising in Nathan's drawn features.; iIn reality, his brain was simply having to work harder at to translating translate what Nathan had just said. Skwisgaar then had a panicky moment where the English words just would not come to his lips, but he managed to remember enough to ask his most pertinent question at the moment.

"Where's is beingks Toki?" Skwisgaar asked, then cut his eyes tight as a light as white and stark as the sheets had once been flared into life above their heads.

Nathan let the doctor attend to Skwisgaar's IV and putter back into his rooms before he replied, pulling up a straight-backed wooden chair next to Skwisgaar's bed and straddling it backward.

"Don't worry about Toki right now." Nathan inserted a ragged black fingernail into his mouth and chewed for a moment. Skwisgaar noticed that _all _his fingernails were ragged now, the black paint chipping chipped off to reveal the yellowed nails behind. "You're on way too many drugs to deal with that. Just…just wait for Ofdensen to get here, okay?"

Silence fell as Skwisgaar's eyebrows drew together, working hard to unscramble the English he once understood so well. The harder he had to work, the more the panic rose in his chest, the harder the hammer fell into the back of his skull…p

"Nathan, was he dreaming?"

A man walked in, wearing a rumpled suit and a red tie that hung askew about his neck. Glasses were perched on the top of his receding hairline.

_(Oh God who is he I know who he is he's the Mmanager the Robot but he has a name he always had a name what is his fucking NAME…)_

"Shit, yeah," Nathan replied, looking up from his fingernails to speak to the man whose name Skwisgaar was currently panicking over. "He was mumbling in Swedish, saying Toki's name, didn't wake up again until just a minute ago, but he knew my name right off the fuckin' bat."

"STOPS TALKINGKS!" Skwisgaar bellowed. He could hear his accent in his own ears, clinging to the English like a thick layer of fat. "Cannots…underkskants yous."

Silence fell. —Skwisgaar looked from face to face, and nearly groaned aloud when yet another man walked in. He was shorter, fat, with wild hair and pale green eyes that flashed yellow in the bright light.

"What'sch going on?" he asked, as Skwisgaar's helpless gaze fell on him. "I thought you schaid he wasch all right, Nate?"

"Don't call me Nate," Nathan said, but the reply was automatic; he too was watching Skwisgaar carefully.

The fat man's half-lisp did it—"MURDERSFACE!" Skwisgaar cried, his tongue still clumsy. "And yous…yous…"

It was like having a stutter. Skwisgaar knew exactly what he wanted to say, but the words kept threatening to spill out in a mass of Swedish that would be meaningless to the three men in front of him.

_iBut not to Toki,/i _he thought, but thinking of Toki made him feel more than a little insane. He focused instead on trying to speak coherently.

"Da…da robots. Mansnagers. Off…Ofdensen. i_Ja./i_"Skwisgaar fell back ointo his pillows with a sigh. Now that he _knew _everyone, he felt much better. It had been like looking at his own face in the mirror and not recognizing it.

"Are you feeling all right, Skwisgaar?" Ofdensen asked, his finger hovering over the doctor's call -button. "You're speaking terribly, if you'll pardon my saying so."

At length, Skwisgaar answered, "Whats insk de names of all Scansdinsavia hask been happeningks to mine head?"

This time, the silence did not belong to Skwisgaar. He lay there, watching with steadily rising fear as his friends exchanged troubled glances, and for the first time, he noticed things.

Nathan's forehead,

_(Stitch marks Nathan's got stitch marks on his forehead they're all over his arms fucking brutal but oh God how'd they get there)_

Murderface's arms,

_(Tape from wrist to elbow medical tape and Murderface hasn't cut himself in years and why is it there why)_

and Ofdensen's own hands.

_(Fingers all wrapped up he's got gauze pads on his palms Ofdensen never hurts himself!)_

Everything fell neatly into heartbreaking place.

"It's not beingks his faults," Skwisgaar said immediately.

"Tell that to my forehead," Nathan muttered, but Ofdensen gave him a harsh look before actually catching Skwisgaar's eye. He held the gaze, conveying something very important to the injured guitarist before asking his question.

"Why isn't it his fault, Skwisgaar?"

A low throb resonated over Skwisgaar's skull, the epicenter of which he touched gently with his fingertips, recoiling at the feel of sutures beneath his skin. He remembered Toki pushing him, but did not recall actually falling, or the sensation of his head splitting on the concrete. He had every right in the world to be furious at Toki, to blame him for the other men's injuries as well as his own. He knew that he had every right, except he had i_no/i_ right—he alone could have prevented Toki's mad outburst, and he had not done so.

_(But oh, it's so much deeper than that and you know it, you know it, you know it.)_

Skwisgaar could feel the insanity dancing at the edge of his mind as he thought of Toki, remembered Toki's voice and laughter, the smell of liquor and rage, the feel of rough hands on his body and rapacious lips pressed to his. It made him feel small, weak, pathetic, sick—just the way he had been afraid of feeling had he talked to Toki about the dreams of his mother.

_(And you feel it anyway, don't you, you fucking asshole, you feel it anyway and you deserve to feel it.)_

"It's not beingks his faults," Skwisgaar breathed, "'Cause I…I coulds have been stoppingks him."p

"Fuck, no one can stop Toki when—"p

"He loveds me," Skwisgaar said quietly. He raised his head and met his bandmates' flabbergasted eyes with all the pride and haughtiness he had become famous for over the years, and in his eyes they read their a warning:p

_It's above either of you, _that look said, i _Above you and beyond you and mocking either of us will only serve to bring you lower._

They held their tongues. Ofdensen smiled.

"He loveds me," Skwisgaar repeated. He continued haltingly, letting the words come to him rather than wracking his mind for them. "Ands I…I's not knowingks whats I be feelingks. Or I was knowingks, buts… I was not actingks likes I did. Buts evens den I coulds…coulds…have beens dere fors him, likes I was sayingks I woulds be. Likes he was beingks fors me. He…he's always sayingks dat I takes cares of hims, and hes gets so angries 'cause he t'hinks I don'ts…I don'ts…be lettingks him take cares of me too…whens da trut'hs is dat…dat really he's been doingks _eversryt'ingks _fors me, and I runs froms him. I does nothingks fors him. I abandons him…'cause I's was afraids, 'cause I was beingks toos much ofs da pussy to faces hows I was feelingks…ands whats…whats de fucks does he be doingks?"

Skwisgaar's pale hands had clenched into the bloodstained sheet throughout this whole speech, until the IV threatened to burst out of his bulging vein again. His face was pale, drawn into the lines of fury his friends recognized well, but there was an unsettling glint of self-hatred in his blue eyes that no one had ever seen before.

"Whats does he i_always/i _be doingks when he's beingks upset?" Skwisgaar hissed through clenched teeth.p

"He drinks," Nathan said, his tone of voice and expression unreadable.p

"He i_drinks,/i_" Skwisgaar echoed, and shuddered. "Toki nevers has beingks ables to…to handles da liquor likes da rests of us is. I's been knowingks dat fors years now…since da firsts times we's be givingks hims da vodka. I's watched its happeningks likes da clocks work when somet'ingks…somet'ingks makes him sad, or mad, ors even whens he just cons…confusled. I knoweds dat he was goingks to get drunks and I knowed whats would be happeningks to hims when he did…he…he gets…"

"Feral," Murderface supplied, and Skwisgaar nodded his head.

"He be losingks his mind. He nevers remembers whats he be doingks, what be happeningks, ifs he ever was rememberingks it would…it woulds be _hurting _him so bad. Sos does you _see?_"he asked, raising his head again, the pride in his eyes replaced with pleading. "It's…it's not beingks his faults. It's beings _mine_."

Murderface—still uncharacteristically silent since the disappearance of Pickles—turned his face away from Skwisgaar to meet Nathan's eyes briefly. The gaze they held was short, and Murderface cast his eyes to the floor moments later; he would defer to Nathan in this matter.

Nathan coughed a little. He put a fingernail into his mouth, only to discover that he had bitten it to the quick. He settled for shaking his leg.

"So," he rumbled, "Let me…uh, get this straight. You and Toki are, uh…queerqueer?"

Skwisgaar's eyes were sharp as he cut them toward Nathan, but there was nothing in the lead singer's expression to suggest that he meant the term in any kind of derogatory way. Indeed, his eyebrows were pointed upward in concern, and more than a little in confusion.

"_Ja,_"Skwisgaar replied, not bothering to explain that it wasn't a matter of gay, straight, bi, or even a matter of sexuality at all—it was simply a matter of Toki completing him.

"Well.," Nathan swallowed hard, then tried for an awkward smile. "I can…I can deal with that. I mean, buttsex is pretty brutal, right?"

For the first time in weeks, Murderface snorted laughter. Ofdensen was staring at Nathan with a horrified look on his face, but Skwisgaar was smiling wanly.

"Oh, _ja,_"he agreed. "Nows speakin' ofs de brutals…wheres is Toki?"

He didn't expect a clear answer, and so he took the news as bravely as he could—no one knew where Toki had gone. He had, like Pickles, simply disappeared.

"I…_ja. _I figureds as much," Skwisgaar mumbled, and laid back ointo his pillows. "Whats 'bout Pickle?"

"Nothing," Ofdensen replied quietly, and silence fell—an awful, painful silence—as the manager and the three remaining members of the greatest band in the universe contemplated what on Earth they were going to do next.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Skwisgaar Skwigelf stood in the center of the courtyard, head down, a fall of lank blond hair shadowing the sides of his sharp face. The yard wolves circled him loosely. Their black snouts twitched as they scented him, and their jowls pulled back in fanged grins.

They could smell his blood.

It dripped from his bunched left hand into the dirt below, soaking into the ground and leaving a dark stain. Skwisgaar either did not notice or did not care. He paid no attention to the wolves that stalked him, their hunger whetted by his spilt blood. The veins in his forearms bulged outward in snaking cords as he clenched down harder with his bleeding fist.

Suddenly, the Alpha wolf stopped in his tracks. His ears twitched, then lay flat against his bullet-shaped skull. The scent of the man had changed—the smell of his blood, fresh and enticing, was being overridden by another smell. It burned in the wolves' sensitive noses like vinegar, making their tales slip between their legs, making them cower and grovel on their bellies at Skwisgaar's booted feet.

As Skwisgaar raised his trembling, dripping hand toward his face, the wolves began to whimper. The man's fury-smell was overpowering—as his head rose, one wolf's bladder let go in a flood of acrid urine. The creature wallowed in its own piss, too afraid to move.

Skwisgaar opened his wounded hand; he never once winced as the sharp barbs of Toki's slightly wolf-gnawed Dethphone tore free from the skin of his palm. His sunken eyes burned brightly from his flushed face, like balls of crackling blue lightning.

As Skwisgaar's rage burst out of him, the wolves began to howl.

Swearing in a torrent of furious, slurred Swedish, Skwisgaar rared back with his bloodstreaked arm and hurled the Dethphone into the distance. The wolves followed the arc of his throw with yellow eyes, then took off after it, still howling, harmonizing with Skwisgaar's bellowed curses.

_God damn it, _Skwisgaar thought, as he turned and strode back toward the sweeping staircase that led up to the front door of Mordhaus. _He's left nothing._

Skwisgaar's head, still stapled, throbbed darkly. He was going to pay for his angry adrenaline rush, but he could not care less. The Dethphone had been another dead end for him, another failed attempt at finding Toki, who had been gone for the better part of a week now.

_Which means Pickles has been missing for almost a month,_ he reminded himself, absently wiping blood on the leg of his pants. _We're falling apart._

The ongoing search for Pickles had turned up very little. A few people thought they might have seen him a few weeks earlier, around the time he would have escaped the rehab facility, but the leads had turned into dead ends for each supposed sighting. One or two more thought they had seen him in the city outside of Mordland, but that report had been over a week ago, and absolutely nothing had been reported since.

"The only good news in this that I can see," Ofdensen had said during a meeting the night before, "is that these reports come from only two areas: the city in which New Method Wellness was located, and the city outside our compound."

The search for Toki was, if at all possible, going worse. There was not even the breath of a rumor that the kid had been spotted. Skwisgaar had suggested that they begin to pay attention to Toki's internet pages—he liked to log in on his own Facebook fan page, despite the fact that he was forbidden to post anything—but so far, the hackers that had been hired to pinpoint the location of Toki's logins had not seen so much as a single attempt.

Skwisgaar himself had personally interrogated the Klokateers that had been on guard duty at the front gate when Toki left, as well as the ones who had been stationed along the sweeping drive down which Toki must have walked. The guards admitted to seeing their Lord leave the Mordland compound, but explained that Toki had declined any offer of transportation, as well as bodyguards.

"My Lord, Master Wartooth simply walked away down the road," Number 432, a front gate guard, had explained. He had been shaking as he knelt in front of Skwisgaar, head bowed in respect. "I regret now that we did not stop him."

It had taken Nathan's big arms and Ofdensen's firm voice to keep Skwisgaar from attacking the guard out of sheer, furious disappointment. Instead, Skwisgaar wracked his brain for another day, until he came up with the idea try to pinpoint Toki's location via the GPS on his Dethphone. The appropriate technical personnel had been hired, but the GPS had led them to Mordhaus' own courtyard. Toki's phone—still operational at that point—was being used as a chew toy by an adolescent yard wolf.

Skwisgaar had volunteered himself to go retrieve it, in order to hide his acute disappointment. He was out the door before Charles could warn him to be careful.

As Skwisgaar had stooped to pick up the phone, a wave of anger had engulfed him—all his frustration, all his self-hatred, all his disappointment had come to head there in the courtyard as the wolves looked on.

_And now I've got nothing to show for it but a fucked-up hand, _he thought, angry again. _I won't be able to play for weeks._

Of course, he had already gone nearly three weeks without playing. If Toki and Pickles weren't found soon, Skwisgaar doubted he'd ever want to pick up a guitar again.

He trudged up the huge staircase, only now beginning to feel the sharp pricks of pain in his left hand. Skwisgaar briefly considered trying to shove it deep into his pocket, in order to hide the damage from Ofdensen, but he simply did not give a damn what Ofdensen said to him at this point.

"Skwisgaar?"

The Swede glanced up from the stone floor. Nathan stood in the foyer.

"_Ja, Nate?"_

"For Chrissake, don't call me Nate," Nathan grumbled. "Where the fuck did'ja go?"

Skwisgaar opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated when he realized he was about to speak in Swedish. That particular aspect of his concussion was still fucking with him.

"Wents to get Toki's Dethphone," he replied at length. "Wolves eatingks it now."

"It'll probably kill 'em," Nathan remarked, falling into step alongside the Swede. A moment or two later—

"Holy fuck, Skwisgaar—did you get bit or somethin'?" Nathan stopped in mid-stride, grabbing Skwisgaar's lacerated hand in his larger one.

"Phone dids it," Skwisgaar replied briefly. "Nots hurtingks."

"You gotta be more careful, man," Nathan said. "It's a good fuckin' thing those hands of yours are insured for…uh… how much was it again?"

"I forgets," Skwisgaar answered. "Ands it don'ts be matteringks nows, anyways."

Nathan's thick, dark brows furrowed together. "Why not?"

"I haven'ts pickeds ups da guitars in weeks, Nat'ans," Skwisgaar reminded him. "Ands whats mores, I don'ts be wantingks to."

Skwisgaar walked away from Nathan without waiting for a reply, taking each step of the staircase with weary movements. His left hand throbbed sharply, and he tucked it close to his chest with a hiss. The bitter smell of blood sickened him. It brought to mind Toki as he had last seen him, with rivulets of blood striping his face into a mask of savagery.

_Will he ever come home? _Skwisgaar paused halfway up the flight, gripping the rail with his good hand as he swayed on his feet. _Never mind if he'll ever forgive me, never mind if he'll ever even _speak _to me again…but will he come home?_

Logic answered yes. Toki had known only two homes: Norway and Dethklok. His life with Dethklok had been heaven compared with the way he had lived in Norway-so why would he _not _return to the most comfortable life he had ever known?

_Because of me, _came the miserable reply in Skwisgaar's mind.

Shoulders slumped, Skwisgaar began to climb again. He had hardly set foot on the next floor when Ofdensen was upon him, strong fingers curling around Skwisgaar's thin upper arm.

"You're an idiot, you know," Ofdensen muttered as he pulled Skwisgaar in the direction of his office. "Those wolves could have shredded you to pieces."

Skwisgaar made a _pfft _sound under his breath, but made no move to resist Ofdensen as he steered him into his dim office. The manager pushed Skwisgaar into a chair, picked up his injured hand, and placed it gently on his desk before he began to rummage through the drawers.

"You need to get ahold of yourself, Skwisgaar," Ofdensen told him, emerging with a bottle of disinfectant, cotton balls, and a roll of gauze.

"Eh? What's dat be meaningks?" the Swede asked, watching the manager with wary eyes as he soaked a cotton ball in peroxide.

"It means I can't hold you boys together with fucking magic," the other man snapped, "Hold still."

He began to press the cotton ball to the worst of the cuts in Skwisgaar's palm, eliciting a surprised hiss from the guitarist.

"Dat shit burns!"

"It's supposed to," Ofdensen answered shortly. "It's killing all the bacteria. There were _wolves _chewing on that phone, you idiot. God only knows what kind of germs you picked up."

"Whats yous be meaningks 'bout magics, anyways?" Skwisgaar asked, trying not to wince as Ofdensen attended to the other wounds in the same manner.

Ofdensen sighed heavily as he wrapped the gauze tightly around Skwisgaar's priceless hand.

"You really don't get it, do you?" he asked, sitting down on the edge of his desk. "Skwisgaar, have you looked in a mirror lately?"

The Swede shook his head.

"You're a walking skeleton," Ofdensen continued. "You're not eating, you're not sleeping. You walk around the Haus like a zombie. The only time you snap out of it is when we try something new to find Toki. When it fails, you slip right back into this damn waking coma of yours."

The manager paused, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he felt a headache coming on. "Skwisgaar, you're not the only person suffering here. I know you're a selfish prick by nature, but William and Nathan are just as lost as you are right now. If the three of you would just _interact _with one another, you would all feel a little better about this whole situation. The three of you would all be able to think more clearly, maybe even come up with some new ideas to find Toki and Pickles. You guys aren't just a band, Skwisgaar," Ofdensen said. "You're a family—the only family that any of you have. If you don't start acting like it, Dethklok is done for."

Skwisgaar(who had been staring fixedly at the floor ever since the words "selfish prick")flexed his newly bandaged hand and said nothing. He was too lost in his own thoughts, too preoccupied with memories that hadn't surfaced in years—absurd memories, for the most part, but they made him ache.

He remembered Pickles, drunk off his ass and giggling like a schoolgirl as he gave Toki his first condom; Nathan's look of incredulity when Toki had come to him to ask just what the hell a condom was _for; _he andMurderface laughing until they couldn't breathe when both Nathan and Pickles tried to mime how to put the damn thing on; Toki finally coming the conclusion that the condom was a balloon, blowing it up, and attempting to draw faces on it.

There was the time when Skwisgaar had found Pickles curled up in a corner of his hotel room, naked, trembling, and sweaty, muttering to himself that the dust bunnies were coming, the dust bunnies were coming…then screeching in horror and pointing madly under the bed when Skwisgaar had tried to explain that there _were _no dust bunnies. Pickles had been so fucked up that Skwisgaar had had to call Nathan, who had simply "swept up" the dust bunnies and put Pickles to bed. As far as Skwisgaar knew, Nathan had stayed with him all night.

Skwisgaar's fists curled despite his injured hand as he remembered the first time he had ever seen Toki's bare back; the scars crossed upon scars. He hadn't been able to ask Toki what had happened, but he'd taken the younger boy into his bed that night…as if he could protect him from whatever nightmare had caused such wounds.

There had been a stretch of months back in the early days when Murderface had had a few more "knife accidents" than usual, and walked around with shallow cuts all up and down his arms. He had eventually come to band practice with gauze wrapped tightly around his wrists, and played bass until the blood soaked through the bandages. From that day forward, Murderface was flanked by one of them wherever he went; usually Nathan or Pickles, but Skwisgaar and Toki had kept him busy on more than one occasion.

The memories kept flooding him: trying to teach Pickles to speak Swedish; the first time Toki got drunk (it was a disaster); the night Murderface tried mushrooms and entertained them by having an elaborate conversation with a toad he found outside; Nathan's first few botched attempts at painting his fingernails black, until Skwisgaar had taken over the job with his steadier hands; Toki learning to play football from Nathan and excelling so much that Nathan walked around beaming like the world's proudest father; Pickles' teaching them how to fucking _ballroom dance _because his mother had made him take lessons…and then Nathan, Nathan in the foyer, grabbing his bloody hand and asking with real concern in his voice if a wolf had bitten him.

"Skwisgaar? Skwisgaar! Did you hear a word I just said?"

Skwisgaar blinked, coming back to reality as Ofdensen snapped his fingers under his long nose. He stared at Ofdensen blankly for a moment, as if trying to figure out why this man hadn't appeared in any of the memories he had just relived.

Skwisgaar smirked—it was no real smile, but it made Ofdensen's eyes widen nonetheless.

"Dids you be knowingks dat Pickle coulds does da ballsroom dance?"

He was up and out the door without waiting for an answer, yelling for Nathan and Murderface with new strength in his voice.


	14. Chapter 13

**Author's Notes:**

I sincerely apologize to all fans of the series for my year-long hiatus. Those who have read this story on LiveJournal and DeviantArt may know some of the reasons behind my absence, but for those of you who do not, I will be providing an explanation on my profile here shortly. Thank you all so much for being patient and sticking with this fic.

As of 1/9/2012, all chapters up through chapter 10 have been replaced by their rewrites. The chapters were rewritten in order to take advantage of my improved writing abilities as well as to improve overall cohesion. I urge all of you to re-read the story before indulging in this chapter and take in the new elements of characterization and plot. For warnings and disclaimers, please see Chapter 1.

This chapter is not beta-read. I apologize for any errors in grammar, punctuation, and/or spelling.

* * *

Hope.

Skwisgaar knew it was a dangerous word. A word encompassing such a vast emotion could only be dangerous. It was dangerous for the same reasons that love was dangerous: when it was gone, crushed under lies or cheating or death, the pain could be-would be-brutal.

Nevertheless, it was hope that drove Skwisgaar to take the stairs leading down into the foyer two at a time. It was hope that fueled the smile on his face, the strength in his voice. It was, possibly, all he had left.

All Dethklok had left.

When his boots at last clicked down onto he dark marble of the foyer floor, Skwisgaar glanced around for a moment, surveying the shadowy corridors and trying to decide into which one Nathan had disappeared earlier. One-the eastern-led into the main living area of Mordhaus, with its vast rec rooms, dining halls, committee rooms, offices and bedrooms. The other led west and downward, into the studios, the recording rooms, the servant quarters and dungeons. He was just about to choose at random when he saw a hood moving quietly within the shadows. He snapped his fingers, gesturing to the spot directly in front of him.

The Gear knelt in front of Skwisgaar, bowing his head and exposing the still-raw scar tissue of his brand.

"How may I serve you, Lord Skwigelf?" he asked, and his voice cracked as he spoke.

_How old is this one? _Skwisgaar wondered, but all he said was, "Where is Nat'ans?"

The Gear swallowed once and replied in a controlled voice, "Lord Explosion is in Studio C, I believe, my Lord."

Skwisgaar's pale eyebrows bunched. No one had been into the studio for weeks, not since Pickles disappeared.

"Ands Murd…ands Will?" he asked.

"Lord Murderface is in the main recreation room, my Lord. Shall I fetch them for you?"

"_Nej. _Whats yous numbersed?" Skwisgaar asked.

"I am Gear 4628, at your service, my Lord."

"_Ja, _okay. Goes backs to whatsever yous was doingks," Skwisgaar waved his hand in dismissal, making a mental note to tell Charles to double-check 4628's background. There was no way he was of age.

He took the elevator down to level C first, thinking that Will might be easier to convince with Nathan behind him. The elevator was slow, and it shook. Skwisgaar was glad when the _ding! _came and the doors rattled open.

Unable to contain himself, still full of that dangerous hope, Skwisgaar took off down the corridor toward the studio door. He paused only once, when he passed the stone arch that led into the stairwell where he'd last seen Toki.

_What was he thinking, when he came down this hallway? _Skwisgaar thought, turning himself back in the direction of the studio. _What was going through his mind?_

The studio door was open slightly, casting a thin beam of yellow light into the darkness of the hall. Skwisgaar peered into this opening first, not wanting to startle Nathan with the heavy door's inevitable creak. What he saw hurt him, and he understood what Charles had meant.

Nathan sat alone behind Pickles' drum set, awkward and looming and silent. His eyes were far away and heavy, as if he were reliving some old memory. One of Pickles' drumsticks—his favorites, blue-banded and well worn—was clutched in his left hand. As Skwisgaar watched, Nathan trailed the fingers of his other hand over one of the hi toms. His eyes came back into focus for a moment as he brought the fingers toward his face, gazing at them as if what he found there hurt him.

"Nat'ans?" Skwisgaar called quietly, unable to stand it any longer. He pushed the door open.

"Nat'ans," he said again, as the bigger man jumped up, brushing off his hand on the seat of his jeans and hiding the drumstick behind his back.

"Uh, Skwisgaar, hey, I was…uh…just, uh…"

Skwisgaar crossed the room toward him, glancing down at the drum set. Four thick lines on the hi tom were the only places free of the fine scrim of dust that seemed to have settled over all their instruments.

"S'okay, Nat'ans," Skwisgaar said quietly. "We's all missingks dem." Skwisgaar added the clean smudges of his own fingerprints as he touched a cymbal, his fingernails creating the slightest reverberation as the clinked against the metal.

A sigh escaped the big man then, like a breath that had been held for far too long. Nathan brought the drumstick from behind his back.

"Kinda, uh…pathetic, huh?" he said, twirling it through his fingers like a baton, a habit Pickles always had during recording breaks. "I've even been feedin' Toki's damn goldfish."

Skwisgaar had to smile at that. Jaws was the only pet of Toki's that had survived for any extended period of time, living in an old jumbo margarita glass of Pickles' on Toki's dresser.

"_Nej. _Is okay. I's t'inks…I's t'inks I maybes has an ideas ons how to be findingks him. Ons how to be findingks dem both." he said, pulling his eyes away from Pickles' abandoned drum set.

Nathan's eyes were understandably skeptical, but he tucked Pickles' drumstick away in a pocket and said, "Yeah? I'm listening."

"We's gots all dese peoples lookingks for dem, _ja? _Ands we constactsed everies peoples who be knowingks dem well, _ja?" _Skwisgaar asked, picking up Pickles' other drumstick and twirling it over his long fingers as Nathan had done.

"Yeah, and none of 'em know a damn thing. If the people who know 'em best don't know—"

"Dats just its!" Skwisgaar cut him off, pointing at Nathan's face with the drumstick and beginning to smile a little. "We hasn'ts been talkingks to de peoples who be knowingks dem best, Nat'ans, because _we ams dose peoples!"_

"But we already know that none of us know—"

"_Nej, nej, _you be missingks da point! We don'ts be knowingks wheres dey is, buts we be knowingks _dem_, yous sees? Yous been wit' Will fors years now, yous know each others since da beginnings, an' Charles has been beingks knowings Pickle since he was wearingks makeups likes beautifuls lady, den da fours of yous been knowingks each others for years, and I been knowingks Toki since he's was justs a kid, an's Toki was da only roadie we had until Mangsnus died, ands _den _he was wit' da band tils we gots big, ands we 's all—"

Nathan held up a hand, and Skwisgaar halted his tirade, suddenly aware that he had gotten carried away and begun to talk very fast. His accent had probably mushed his words until Nathan couldn't understand him—

But Nathan was smiling. It was strange, to see him smile, mainly because he rarely had even before Pickles and Toki disappeared. Skwisgaar waited for his reply.

"So, what you're saying is that we—me, you, and Murd…and Will and the Rob…and Charles—should take all this searching bullshit into our own hands?" Nathan asked.

"Dats exactlies what's I's sayingks!" Skwisgaar exclaimed, and he let the hope carry him away for the moment; as he rode its wave he dared to imagine their family whole again.

When he caught Nathan's eye, he saw that his hope had infected him; they shared it between them like a fever. The singer's grin was wide and bright as he slung one heavy arm around Skwisgaar's bony shoulders and said, "What the hell, it can't hurt, right? Let's go find Will!"

xXx

They found Will in the main rec room, sitting Indian-style on a huge leather couch. As Skwisgaar had done upon seeing Nathan perched behind Pickles' drumset, they both paused before entering the room, trying to gauge Will's current mood.

The bassist's shoulders were hunched, his face inches away from the knife and block of wood clutched in his pudgy fingers. Unaware of his audience, he continued to peel away wafer-thin slivers of wood from the block; they floated like feathers into his lap or onto the floor, joining the already impressive piles of shavings.

"What's he makin'?" Nathan asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

"Eh…" Skwisgaar squinted into the room, "I's can'ts be tellingks from dis fars."

"Might as well go in and see, I guess," said Nathan, and he pushed the door open. "After you, dude."

Skwisgaar slipped into the room. Neither he nor Nathan made an effort to be quiet, but Will, so absorbed in his craft, never noticed them until they were nearly on top of him.

"Schit," he muttered, covering the little block of wood with one thick palm, as if he were ashamed of what he had been attempting to create. "I didn't…I didn't schee you guysch."

"We's not meaningks to…to…" Skwisgaar paused for a moment, then cursed bitterly in Swedish. A fierce headache was beginning to pound around the stitches in his scalp, and he waved a hand at Nathan, signalling him to continue with what Skwisgaar's brain was still too scrambled to say.

"We didn't mean to, uh, startle you or nothin'," Nathan said, leaning over the back of the couch. He crossed his thick forearms and rested his chin upon them. "You were pretty focused on that…the thing. What're you makin', anyway?"

"Fuck, it'sch nothin'," Will muttered, and moved to tuck the piece of wood into his pocket. "Juscht fuckin' around—hey!"

Nathan had reached out and grabbed Will's little project before he could hide it away. The site of it brought a pained smile to Skwisgaar's face—it was a model airplane, carved completely out of a single block of wood. It looked nearly finished, except for a slight thickness to the rear fin.

"Holy shit, Will," Nathan mumbled, turning the model over in his fingers as carefully as possible, "This is fuckin' great. I had no idea you could do this shit."

"You did," Will said at length, once he realized that neither Nathan nor Skwisgaar was going to make fun of him for his whittling hobby, "I usched to do it a lot, yearsch ago…I had to make Picklesch a drumschtick oncsche, remember?"

Skwisgaar did—vaguely—and sank into the couch next to Will as he nodded his head. "Pickle…he broked it. Just befores we is havingks to puts on shows at somes shitshole clubs. Its was beingks de onlies pair he's was havingks, ands we was beingks too poor to buys him any news ones."

"I remember that," Nathan said, handing the model plane to Skwisgaar to examine and pulling out the drumstick he had tucked into his pocket. "Sure. Magnus was still alive and Pickles was pretty smashed, he put the damn thing in his back pocket and sat on it."

The three of them laughed, and Nathan climbed over the back of the sofa to sit on Will's other side.

"That was back before he was doing the crazy shit, wasn't it?" Nathan asked, sifting his hand through some of the wood shavings. "Like when his vices were strictly booze and weed."

"_Ja_, he's not gettingks into de crazy shit untils afters we hits it big," Skwisgaar replied, giving the little model airplane back to Will.

There was silence for a long, long moment.

"Sometimes…" Nathan paused, then scowled and gathered a fistful of wood shavings. He clenched them between his fingers and continued, "Sometimes, I think hittin' it big was the worst thing that ever happened to us."

"We have kinda…kinda drifted apart thesche pascht few yearsch, I guessch," Will said, taking the blade to the tail end of the model airplane.

Skwisgaar watched him peel back another tiny sliver, taking in his sliced fingertips, his scarred arms. Then he glanced up at Nathan, who had sprawled himself backward on the couch, arms behind his head as he stared off into space. For a moment, melancholy memories threatened to suffocate him.

Skwisgaar shook them off, hard. He put a hand on Will's shoulder and said, "Dat's why we has to be findingks dem. Pickle and Toki."

Will opened his mouth to protest, to say the same things Nathan had said, but Nathan himself cut him off.

"No, listen," he said, "It's, uh, well, it's Skwisgaar's idea, but he's still kinda having a hard time talking right, so…well, you know we've got, like, everybody and his fuckin' brother looking for Pickles and Toki both, you know that already."

"Yeah," Will said, "And they've got schit to schow for it, can't even find the godamned drug dealer.."

"Well, Skwisgaar made a pretty good point earlier, a damn good point," Nathan continued, and Skwisgaar could feel it again, could feel that heated hope.

"Which wasch?" Will prompted.

"Well, all these jackoffs looking for Pickles and Toki, they don't know them. They don't know either one of them like we do. The three of us—well the three of us and the manager—we know those guys. We know both of 'em like the back of our fuckin' hands. They're…well…they're our brothers. And, well, in Skwisgaar's case lover, but ya know, what it all comes down to is, I guess, well, those guys are our family. And we oughta be out there lookin' for them our own damn selves, because we stand the best chance of finding 'em, right, Skwisgaar?" Nathan added, glancing up at the Swede to make sure he'd gotten it right.

Skwisgaar grinned. Despite the pain that was radiating outward from the staples in his head, a pain that was quickly making him nauseated and sick, he smiled and nodded his head, because Nathan had said it far better than he ever could have.

Will was smiling as well, the first genuine smile of happiness that Skwisgaar could remember seeing on his face in years; then, without warning, the bassist dissolved into laughter.

"Will?" Nathan began to laugh himself; mirth was contagious, it seemed. "Will, the fuck are you laughing at, dude?"

"I wasch just thinkin'," Will said, his chuckles finally tapering off into a broad, mischievous grin. "I was juscth thinkin' about the look on the manager's facsche when we tell him we're gonna go off lookin' for Pickles and Toki all by ourselves. He's gonna shit himself."

Nathan snickered. "Yeah, Skwisgaar, the fuck are we gonna do about the Robot? Will's right, he's gonna have a shit fit…not that that's gonna stop us, but ya know."

Skwisgaar waved a hand at them. "Yous don't s be worryingks 'bout de Robots. He's goingks to be comingks wiff us…he just, uh…he just not be knowingks it yet."

xXx

The look on Charles' face was less humorous in reality than in imagination.

"You've lost your minds," Charles said, staring in blatant disbelief at the three remaining members of his band across the cluttered expanse desk. "You've all three gone and completely lost your minds."

Nathan, Will, and Skwisgaar sat in a row across from him. Nathan was chewing his ragged fingernails and shooting sidelong glances at Skwisgaar as if to say _What the fuck do we do now? _Will was slouched low in his seat, arms crossed tightly across his chest. Skwisgaar, his headache growing increasingly worse, had one elbow propped on the manager's desk to cradle his forehead as he waited for Charles to end his speech of incredulity.

"This may be your most idiotic idea to date," Charles continued, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he shook his head. "I'm thrilled that the three of you seem to be, ah, interacting again, don't get me wrong, but this is impossible. Absolutely impossible. Two of you already missing, I'm fighting the media equivalent of World War Three every goddamn day to keep the public from finding out, no leads whatsoever on either of their whereabouts, and you three…you three want to wander off and try to play detective? You want to go off and find them yourselves like some kind of heavy metal Hardy Boys?"

"_Ja_," Skwisgaar said, squeezing his eyes closed as the rising volume of Charles' voice ate into his throbbing brain. "Dats 'bout de gists of it."

"What on earth made you think that this would ever be a good idea?" Charles asked, and he looked genuinely perplexed.

Nathan and Will pointed at Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar glared at them, but he was smirking as he did it.

"Skwisgaar," Charles began, his voice softening a little, "I know you're frustrated by the lack of success we've been having, but that doesn't mean—"

"Yous de one who gives me de ideas, Robots," Skwisgaar said, and shrugged. He leaned back in his chair, fighting to keep his vision from growing swimmy. The nausea was worse, but if they had a prayer of convincing the manager that their plan was a good one, he was going to have to hold on for a little while longer.

"Me?" Charles' eyes went wide; then he seemed to remember his conversation with Skwisgaar earlier that day and slapped a hand over his face. "Oh, shit. Shit, Skwisgaar, this isn't what I meant…"

"Dens what's dids you means?" the blond asked, "We's wants to does somet'ingks, Of'ensen. We _has _to be doingks some'tingks, or we's be goingks fuckingks nuts, and I's be knowingks…"

He paused as little white lights began to creep in around the edge of his vision. The floor was beginning to swim upward to meet him, but Skwisgaar sat up and shook himself, leaning across the desk both for support and to make eye contact with the manager.

"I's be knowingks dat yous bee feelingks de sames way. De exacts sames way dats I do. You's is dyingks to gets out dere and does dis you'selfs, and yous knows it, 'cause dese jacksoffs we gots doing de works fors us don'ts know dem likes we does. Dey don'ts be knowingks de t'ingks we knows…don'ts you wants to be findingks Pickle, Charlses?"

Charles' hand rose to his collar to fidget with a tie that wasn't there. He ran it through his hair instead, rumpling the thinning waves until a strand or two fell over his forehead. He looked away from Skwisgaar, only to be caught in the combined gaze of Nathan and Will. They were leaning forward now, too, watching him intently, waiting for him to hold firm or give in, waiting for his reply.

"Tells dem, Charsles," Skwisgaar said quietly. "Tells dem and den comes withs us. You's goingks to does it anyways."

"How do you know what I'm going to do?" he snapped, knowing that Skwisgaar was right.

The Swede grinned. "Because we's kidsnaps you and brings yous withs us if yous says no."

At that, Skwisgaar saw the tension go out of the manager's shoulders, saw a rueful half smile twist his thin lips; he sank back in his chair, closing his eyes against the deep ache in his head, knowing they had won.

"God dammit, fine," Charles said, and even through the nauseating agony of his headache, Skwisgaar could feel it again; that feverish hope, burning brightly between the four of them.


End file.
